Kjersten Johnson

Professor Gardner
ELang 410
13 April 2016
Divinity Is Within You
Kicker: If we could see our divine potential, how different would we be? Would we treat others
differently?
Sometimes, we feel like terrible people. We think, Why did I mess that up again? Why couldnt
I do this better? We judge without realizing how far weve come or how far we can still go. In
March 1974, Truman G. Madsen, then a BYU professor of religion, gave a fireside address titled
The Highest in Us, which discusses humankinds divine potential.
Brother Madsen highlights our belief in a physical God, a God whose nature differs
greatly from the non-corporeal God of other religions. In the address, Brother Madsen recounts a
discussion at a theological seminary where he defended the nature of God and Christ and our
ability to become gods.
The truth is, and I bear it humbly, that even the person you think the worst offand in
some cases that may be yourselfeven that personality that it has been most difficult for you to
forgive will be, in a century or two, in such a condition that if you saw him or her your first
impulse would be to kneel in reverence, Brother Madsen says. The truth is that the embryo
within the worst of us is divine. The potential is there.
Brother Madsen says that if we were to realize who we are and what we did to get here,
that if we knew the latent infinite power that is within us, then we would never again yield to
any of the putdownsin our culture today.
We all have the potential to become godsto become the best versions of ourselves.
Were already on our way.
Read Truman G. Madsens talk The Highest In Us here.
Kjersten Johnson, Eagle River, Alaska
Word Count: 254
Find more insights: Read the dictionary entry on lds.org for Becoming Like God. Watch Elder
Daniel L. Johnson of the seventy discuss how becoming a true disciple is becoming like God in
this October 2012 address. Read Elder Jeffrey R. Hollands October 2003 address The Grandeur
of God that discusses the character of God.
Titles: Divine Nature of God and Self, Divinity Is Within You, God Is in Your DNA, If We Only
Knew Our Potential
Pull quotes:
The truth is that the embryo within the worst of us is divine. The truth is that there is
nothing you can do to really destroy that fact. The potential is there. (Truman G.
Madsen)
As man now is God once was. As God now is man may become. (Lorenzo Snow)

The work of salvation is the glorious work of Jesus Christ. But it is also the glorious
work of the uncovering and recovering of your own latent divinity. (Truman G. Madsen)
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