Vector art of a man walking up a grassy hill under a tree, a silhouette against the sky, enjoying a peaceful outdoor adventure — “There is something really powerful about incremental growth,” Sheri says. “I think in the Lord’s mercy, He understood this.”

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It can be frustrating to recognize the ways we fall short, especially if we’re trying hard to be better. Immediate improvement is often what we expect of ourselves.

But during a conversation on the Magnify podcast, Sheri Dew, executive vice president and chief content officer of Deseret Management Corporation and former counselor in the Relief Society General Presidency, offers reassurance:

“There is something really powerful about incremental growth. I think in the Lord’s mercy, He understood this.”

Gifts for Growing through the Wilderness

Sheri believes the experience Lehi’s family had in the wilderness “is a complete analogy of our earth life.”

“We are in a foreign environment,” she explains. “We’re in this wilderness, and everything isn’t pretty. Some things are messy, and some things take a while.”

However, Sheri lists powerful tools we’ve been given that can guide us through the wilderness and help us become better:

“Because we have so many gifts and so many mercies from the Lord, we should be able to make fairly persistent incremental growth,” she says. “As you try to seek the Lord’s direction in your life, as you try to get better at being able to discern the promptings of the Spirit, as you go to the temple more, … there is a cumulative effect.”

She later adds, “If you just keep going to the temple on a regular cadence, whatever that is for you, there’s no way that doesn’t have an impact on you. You walk out different than when you walked in, even if you didn’t have some blinding blaze of revelation.”

2 Ways to Discern Your Growth

Though growth may be incremental, Sheri believes we can still notice how our efforts are working.

First, take note of worldly things you’ve given up.

“Some of the things that I thought were just really cool [when I was younger], I don’t really care about anymore,” Sheri says. “And there are some things that I absolutely would’ve indulged and even participated in when I was younger … that now feel really coarse to me. I just don’t want to watch it. I just don’t want to listen to it. I don’t want to have that kind of conversation. I don’t like how it makes me feel. I want something that makes me feel more elevated.”

Sheri explains that giving up worldly things is evidence of your nature becoming more refined and in harmony with Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ.

A second way to discern growth is by asking yourself whether you want to be one with Jesus Christ.

For example, Sheri explains that she was struck when President Jeffrey R. Holland recently expressed his lifelong desire to be one with Christ.

“I picked my hair thinking, ‘OK, can you really say that, Sheri, with your fullness of heart, that you want to be one with Jesus Christ?’ And I think I can say more and more that that’s true,” she says.

Regardless of our past mistakes or our current imperfections, we can rise and be examples of the Light of Jesus Christ.

“As flawed as we may be,” Sheri says, “I think that’s what each of us can absolutely do.”

Hear more from Sheri on the full Magnify episode, which is available on all major podcast streaming platforms.

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