“We need to be careful not to hide our sins without taking care of them, not to ignore the repentance process. I have found that one of the biggest obstacles I have to overcome in order to repent is my own pride. It really does demand humility to recognize that we have need to repent. Yet the scriptures tell us, “For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23). We sometimes have a tendency to think that what we have done is not very bad. We pile our shortcomings up and measure them against what we see as the shortcomings and faults of our neighbors, our roommates, our husbands and wives, our fellow ward members, and we think we look pretty good. But, if we are really honest with ourselves and look at what the Lord sees, we recognize that we are “weighed in the balance . . . and found wanting” (Daniel 5:27). Our path to perfection must lie through a series of “small” repentances, but we never get on that path unless we are willing to admit that we have done less than right or good, that we have done wrong. So it is a small but significant thing to seek honestly to see our sins and overcome them.”

-Cheryl Brown, former Associate Professor of Linguistics and Associate Dean of the College of Humanities

This quote is taken from Cheryl Brown’s BYU Devotional speech on  May 11, 1993, which is titled, “Out of Small Things Proceedeth That Which Is Great.”