Daily Inspiration Quote by David O. McKay

Austerity can be comforting when it draws a clean line between what you control and what you don’t. David O. McKay’s “Do your duty, that is best; leave unto the Lord the rest” works by narrowing the moral field to one hard, graspable thing: duty. In a religious register, “duty” isn’t just personal preference dressed up as virtue; it’s obligation under covenant, a commitment that holds even when outcomes don’t cooperate. The phrase “that is best” isn’t arguing a case so much as closing it, offering certainty as pastoral care.

The subtext is a disciplined refusal of both panic and pride. Panic wants guarantees; pride wants credit. McKay’s line denies both by relocating results to God. It’s a theological pressure valve for modern life’s anxious bookkeeping: you don’t get to engineer salvation, control other people, or micromanage Providence. You’re responsible for effort and integrity, not for turning the world into proof you were right.

Context matters. McKay led The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints through the mid-century churn of war, economic change, and postwar conformity. For a community with a strong ethic of work, family order, and public respectability, the quote reinforces steadiness: show up, keep your promises, act cleanly, then stop trying to dominate the uncontrollable. Read charitably, it’s an antidote to perfectionism and scrupulosity. Read critically, it can also function as a gentling instrument, steering believers away from questioning authority or demanding immediate justice by sanctifying patience. Either way, it’s a slogan of moral labor paired with metaphysical release.