Yesterday at the temple I noticed a man hobbling slowly along with a wheeled walker.  Another elderly brother with whom I gently shook hands had huge, painful-looking, arthritic joints in his fingers and knuckles.  A sister rode her motorized wheel chair through the foyer.  I looked for, but didn’t see, the Down’s syndrome young man who is usually there doing one endowment after another.

Anywhere you are in the world, you can look around and see many physical handicaps.  Perhaps you even have some.

Physical handicaps can be very difficult to bear.  I once had rheumatoid arthritis, and was unable to walk for six months.  I recall watching people walk through the living room.  I studied the way they walked, the way they moved their legs and joints, and tried to imitate their movements.  I couldn’t do it.

I uncovered my legs and looked at them.  They were just skin-covered bones.  A few months earlier I’d used those legs to climb a mountain.  I cried.

I thought that perhaps if I could just get out and walk for exercise, maybe I’d get some muscle tone back.  I hobbled out onto the front porch, and stopped where it made a three-inch drop to the sidewalk.  I recall standing there for several minutes contemplating the possibility of negotiating that three-inch step-down so that I could go for my walk.

I couldn’t do it.  Tears sprang to my eyes.  I turned around and went back to my couch.

Physical handicaps can be a mental and spiritual problem, as well as a physical impediment.  I greatly admire the physically-handicapped person who keeps smiling, and who finds ways to be as useful as he can be in spite of his handicaps.  The Down’s syndrome young man at the temple is a prime example.  So is the young man whose lower limbs are deformed, and who laboriously drags his feet as he moves.  He comes every week to do an initiatory session at the temple.

You see heroes such as these all around you—people who have learned to live with their disabilities, and remain cheerful about life.

These people are blessed.  They know that their handicaps are only temporary.  Death and the resurrection will fix their problems.  Mortal life may seem long from our perspective, but is only a flash in the pan of eternity.  They understand when the Lord says, “My son, peace be unto thy soul; thine adversity and thine afflictions shall be but a small moment;

“And then, if thou endure it well, God shall exalt thee on high…”  (D&C 121:7, 8).

Cheerful, physically handicapped people are not to be pitied.  The people to be pitied are the handicapped people with whom the prophets struggled throughout the scriptures.  Jarom listed many of those handicaps in this verse:

“Behold, it is expedient that much should be done among this people, because of the hardness of their hearts, and the deafness of their ears, and the blindness of their minds, and the stiffness of their necks…”  (Jarom 1:3).

Those are handicaps much worse than being a paraplegic.  Death will fix a paraplegic’s problems; but what will fix a hard heart, willfully deaf ears, a blind mind, and a stiff neck?  The only remedy is repentance.  A person with any one of these handicaps likely has them all:  He has a hard heart, so he won’t hear; his mind is blind, so he refuses to understand; his neck is stiff, so he won’t bow his head to pray.  There is no way for the Spirit to penetrate his heart and mind so that the Lord can heal him.

“For this people’s heart is waxed gross, and their ears are dull of hearing, and their eyes they have closed; lest at any time they should see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and should understand with their heart, and should be converted, and I should heal them.”  (Matt. 13:15).

The Savior is the answer.  He can heal grossly hard hearts, deaf ears, and blind eyes and minds; but even He can’t get past a stiff neck that won’t bow in prayer.

“He stretches forth his hands unto them all the day long; and they are a stiffnecked and a gainsaying people; but as many as will not harden their hearts shall be saved in the kingdom of God.”  (Jacob 6:4).

Do you know what a gainsaying person is?  Gainsay means “to deny, to dispute, to speak against, or to contradict.”

You very likely know more people who are gainsaying and stiffnecked than you do who are physically impaired.  Some people will oppose you no matter what you say, and especially when you’re trying to share a truth with them.

Unlike with physical handicaps, death is not going to fix the impairments of hard hearts, willfully deaf ears, blind minds, and stiff necks.  A gainsayer who denies, disputes, speaks against, and contradicts is a negative person.  He’ll continue being negative after he dies.  It will be a long, hard process for him to get himself into a condition where he can join those of which it is said that “every knee shall bow, and every tongue shall confess” (D&C 88:104) that Jesus is the Christ.

There is little we can do about our physical handicaps except to work upon our attitudes.

On the other hand there is much we can do about our spiritual impairments, and now is the time to do it.  If you have a tendency to be gainsaying, go to work on your negativity.  You have the power to fix it now, but you might not have that power after it becomes embedded in your character.

If your neck is stiff, and you don’t feel like praying, Brigham Young counseled us to pray until we do feel like it.  The Lord is very anxious to teach us and to impart knowledge and instruction to us, but can’t do so until we ask for it.  Belief and humility are prerequisites.

If we’ll do something about our stiff necks, our other impairments will melt away.  If we’ll pray, the Spirit will speak.  Our hearts will change.  Our ears, eyes, and minds will open; and our world will become light.

When I was a bishop a woman came to me for counsel.  She was depressed.  Her world was dark.  She had no hope, and everything was a problem.  She wanted help.  She wanted release from the darkness that enveloped her.  We talked for some time.  Finally I asked, “Are you praying?”

She looked me right in the eye as she replied, “Bishop, I haven’t prayed in months.”

The lights came on for both of us as she said that.  She left with a commitment to put prayer back into her life.  When I saw her a few days later there was a smile on her face, a light in her eyes, and a bounce in her step.  That was a quarter century ago.  She has continued shining, and is a light to all around her.  She went from being a “stiffnecked and a gainsaying” person to being a happy and positive individual in spite of the physical handicaps that otherwise limit her.

To one degree or another we all tend to be stiffnecked and gainsaying.  Even the brother of Jared had to be chastened by the Lord “because he remembered not to call upon the name of the Lord.”  (Ether 2:14).  I can’t believe that this prophet simply ceased praying, but I can believe that he quit putting effort and sincerity into his prayers.  I can believe that his prayers might have become mechanical, and that he wasn’t praying for additional knowledge, light, and daily direction.

You and I have done that.

I’ve taught myself and you a new word.  Gainsay is to deny, to dispute, to speak against, and to contradict.  To be a stiffnecked and gainsaying person is to be ultimately and supremely impaired and handicapped.  There is no worse impediment.  If you have any of the symptoms of this handicap, now is the time to fix the problem before it becomes a part of your character.  You have the power to do it.