“Let thy bowels also be full of charity towards all men, and to the household of faith, and let virtue garnish thy thoughts unceasingly; then shall thy confidence wax strong in the presence of God; and the doctrine of the priesthood shall distil upon thy soul as the dews from heaven.” As opposed to rain, snow, or any other form of precipitation, dew does not condense in the air but on the surface of an object. Dew forms on the surface of an object that is colder than the air around it, so this is most likely to happen at night or in the early morning when the heat from the sun hasn’t had a chance to warm everything up yet. Additionally, for an object to become colder than the air around it, it would necessarily have to remain perfectly still. If we want the doctrine of the priesthood to distill upon our souls as the dew from heaven, then we need our minds and hearts to be cooler and more still than the air around us. If we are in an agitated state, we have not created the right conditions for dew to form. As we are filled with charity and especially as we let virtue garnish our thoughts unceasingly, we are able to cast out fear and anger and pride and any other thing in our life that is getting us hot and bothered and unable to receive the dew of priesthood doctrine. And why is this dew so important? As we have established, rain coalesces high above in the sky. When God opens up the windows of heaven and pours blessings down upon us, these raindrops of blessings are of course needed and welcome, but they were created in a place so far above us and beyond our understanding. The dew from heaven, on the other hand, is formed right on the surface of our soul. It is one thing to say love the Lord thy god with all thy soul and thy neighbor as thyself, but that is such a big and nonspecific doctrine. When the doctrine of the priesthood is distilled down and pools together right in our very soul, we get to see how we can apply eternal principles to the quotidian minutia of our day to day experience. Remember, dew is formed at night. When we are in the dark and removed from the light of the Son, we need the specific guidance that the dew from heaven can offer us. Each of us will face situations that are extremely personal and so we need doctrine that is formed right on our very souls, and not merely generic blessings that fell from miles above us. In the film Kung Fu Panda, the character Tigress says, "It is said that the Dragon Warrior can survive for months at a time on nothing but the dew of a single ginkgo leaf and the energy of the universe." That is the beauty of the dews from heaven. All of the love of our Heavenly Father, all of the energy of the universe is distilled down into a single drop of dew that can help us in the exact right way at the exact right time. We all need the raindrops that Heavenly Father sends down upon us, but we are depriving ourselves of something truly wonderful if we are neglecting the dews from heaven.
