Dec. 5, 2016

"Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us."

- Marianne Williamson

Dear Friends and Family,

Recently, I've really be struggling with thinking good thoughts. Uplifting thoughts. Positive thoughts.

As a missionary, you get a lot of time to think about what matters most, and about what's really important. And what I learned in  the process of doing this is very interesting.

Answers don't necessarily come to those who need it. But to those who seek it. 

This is a battle we are in. 

Most people in the world know this. They know there is a fight going on. But what they don't know is who or what they are fighting for. They don't know who'se side they are on. And they don't know if they are going to win. They have forgotten their divine worth.

Well, we know. Or we are supposed to know, anyway. As saints of the one true church on the earth today, and as servants of the Lord, are we living the way we should so that we don't forget what we once knew. Conversion isn't a one day event people. The difference between testimony and conversion is a critical one, and if you don't understand it yet, well, it's something you need to figure out. In case you are wondering, here is my definition of the two thieir connection and the difference between them both.

Testimony is a true and abiding knowledge of this church and this truthfulness. It's a knowledge that is certain and undeniable. And its something you have if you have felt of what is true and right about this gospel, and you know the key and critical points that attest to this church as being the one that is true with the right doctrines and the correct principles.

But Conversion is something different. Testimony was only step one. So what is conversion?

Conversion is a daily commitment that is reaffirmed day by day that you are living by what you know to be true. THat you are applying your knowledge and continually growing the seed rather than losing it. That you are turning your seed of faith into a concrete commitment of lifelong covenant keeping and a foundation rooted in Christ for the awful things that may be still to come but yet you still have faith in and through Him and find peace despite all of the surrounding turmoil and chaos because of your actions. You are converted to him and He has changed you. And no matter how hard it may get you simply will not depart from it because you've already made that decision. And because you have now you are an instrument in the hands of God. 

As David A Bednar said,

"We often testify of what we know to be true, but perhaps the more relevant question for each of us is whether we believe what we know."

And I would add on to that, do we live it?

This world is struggling, and it's no wonder so many are floundering; for they have departed what they know to be truth for their own selfish desires for something that deep down in their heart their will canker and destroy but are unwilling to stay with the truth because it is boring and arduous and hard. Are we really like that? It's our choice after all if we really do want to become the sons and daughters of god with a brilliant future or lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God, in the end to find naught but darkness, and a horrifying nightmare when they realize that what they have been chasing all along has long since been lost and trodden to bits along the wayside of the road. And the prize has been chipped away and withered down until there is nothing left. If that is not what we want then we better watch ourselves and our actions, and keep the day to day things a part of our lives no matter how unworldly and unsightly they may seem. Yes its true that sometimes a movie a netflix episode a phone call or a text may seem more attractive than that little quad of scripture sitting on your nightstand but all of us at some point or another must realize what we are putting down when we decide not to pick it up.

These are the last days people! So forget about the past, and look to where you are at now, so that you can still save the future. In the words of one of my favorite fictional characters of all time, Who are you, and what do you want?

This isn't just a battle between the good side and the bad. The very battle is within each of us, every single day. Each new morning that dawns brings forth a struggle for meaning and a search for inner truths and deepened understanding. A fight for purpose. Each new day requires constant readjustment, and if we don't want to fail than we need to each and every day start to ask ourselves if what we are doing is worth what ever else it is that we are losing.

Each new day we have a daily inward search in order so that we can continue to purge the everyday outward curse.

Satan is Real. And His minions are waiting to drag us down. Are we going to let them?

I plead with each of you to look to Christ. To chase the light at the end of the tunnel. To stay the course. And I promise you that if you do, it will all be worth it. God has a plan for each and every one of us. We just need to hang on!

No one is perfect. But Christ was very clear in saying that if we can purge the inner vessel first, we will then be able to find the results we are searching for in our lives. And the number one way that I can think to do this is through an honest and clear study of the book of mormon. A renewed search in a book of scripture divinely appointed to us as the world's greatest book -- a book through which man can be brought closer to God than by any book.

After all, was it not true that concerning this record the Prophet Joseph Smith said that the Book of Mormon was the most correct of any book on earth, and the keystone of our religion, and a man would get nearer to God by abiding by its precepts, than by any other book?

Boyd K Packer said that "true doctrine, understood, changes attitudes and behavior." He said that  "the study of the doctrines of the gospel will improve behavior quicker than a study of behavior will improve behavior. [that] preoccupation with unworthy behavior can lead to unworthy behavior, [and that] that is why we stress so forcefully the study of the doctrines of the gospel.

God is the source of all truth. And it is my witness to you all this day that if we are not filling our thirsting spiritual souls every single day of our lives with this sacred and essential spiritual nourishment, we will almost certainly fall. This is a battle between what is true and what is not. Every single day of our lives Satan is spurring on His ranks of evil. Are we spurring ourselves on to combat these ranks, and are we arming ourselves properly to face the evil that so constantly surrounds us. We wouldn't send our sons out to war without a sword and a shield and a breastplate. Yet how often do we send our own children out into the world without having read the scriptures, armed with the power of the sacred word or God?

Remember the Words of Christ when He said:

 13 Enter ye in at the strait gate: for wide is the gate, and broad is the way, that leadeth to destruction, and many there be which go in thereat:

 16 Ye shall know [truth] by [its] fruits. ...every good tree bringeth forth good fruit; buta corrupt tree bringeth forth evil fruit.

 18 A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit, neither can acorrupt tree bring forth good fruit.

 19 Every tree that bringeth not forth good fruit is hewndown, and cast into the fire.

 20 Wherefore by their fruits ye shall know them.

~Matthew 7

So that's how we'll know truth. By it's fruits, we will know it. But we aren't going to be able to differentiate between it, we aren't going to be able to discern light from darkness, unless we pray for that power to know. Every day my companions and I strive to pray for the gift of discernment, and there's a reason for it. If you want to know who needs help and how to help yourself and protect your brothers sisters friends and family and all you come into contact with, I would invite you to do the same. Don't just pray. Pray to know the difference between light and dark. Pray for discernment. And pray with a purpose.

Every single day we are bombarded with information. Texts. Posts. Tweets. Status updates. Music. Television. And what was only a few years ago absolutely taboo is now being constructed in big booming letters across billboards and in public.

This is a battle that if we are not very self-aware and very tuned-in, we are going to lose. Scripture study is absolutely critical. If every minute of every day we are under attack, how could we ever think it would be all right to skip scriptures for a day, or for a week, or for a month.

Far beyond that, I would like to suggest that an honest everyday absolute commitment to the study of and constant seeking out of truth through our actions on a day to day basis is the only way we are going to make it in this world today.

Yes its hard. And yes sometimes being a disciple of Christ is quite a price to play. But maybe there's a reason for that. In one of the most sacred talks ever written by Jeffrey R Holland, and in one of the most sublime and absolutely piercing questions I have ever heard Him utter, within which is a truth that I can scarcely read without crying, He says this:

 How could we believe, how could we think, it would be easy for us when it was never, ever easy for Him? It seems to me that [all of God's children, especially those who desire to follow Him are going to] 

have to spend at least a few moments in Gethsemane, [to have to take] at least a step or two toward the summit of Calvary.

 I am convincedthat [this life]

is not easy because salvation is not a cheap experience. Salvation never was easy. We are The Church of JesusChrist, this is the truth, and He is our Great Eternal Head. 

For that reason I don’t believe [the work of good to overpower the evil]

 has ever been easy.  [Nor do I believe that] conversion is... that retention is, nor that continued faithfulness is. I believe it is supposed to require some effort,something from the depths of our soul.

If He could come forward in the night, kneel down, fall on His face,bleed from every pore, and cry, “Abba, Father (Papa), if this cup can pass, let it pass,” 16  then little wonder that salvation is not a whimsical or easy thing for us. If you wonder if there isn’t an easier way, you should remember you are not the first one to ask that. Someone alot greater and a lot grander asked a long time ago if there wasn’t an easier way.

My declaration is that this is precisely what the gospel of Jesus Christ offers us, especially in times of need. There is help. There is happiness. There really is light at the end of the tunnel. It is the Light of the World, the Bright and Morning Star, the “light that is endless, that can never be darkened.”3 It is the very Son of God Himself. In loving praise far beyond Romeo’s reach, we say, “What light through yonder window breaks?” It is the return of hope, and Jesus is the Sun.4 To any who may be struggling to see that light and find that hope, I say: Hold on. Keep trying. God loves you. Things will improve. Christ comes to you in His “more excellent ministry” with a future of “better promises.” He is your “high priest of good things to come.”

I think of newly called missionaries leaving family and friends to face, on occasion, some rejection and some discouragement and, at least in the beginning, a moment or two of homesickness and perhaps a little fear.

I think of young mothers and fathers who are faithfully having their families while still in school—or just newly out—trying to make ends meet even as they hope for a brighter financial future someday. At the same time, I think of other parents who would give any earthly possession they own to have a wayward child return.

I think of single parents who face all of this but face it alone, having confronted death or divorce, alienation or abandonment, or some other misfortune they had not foreseen in happier days and certainly had not wanted.

I think of those who want to be married and aren’t, those who desire to have children and cannot, those who have acquaintances but very few friends, those who are grieving over the death of a loved one or are themselves ill with disease. I think of those who suffer from sin—their own or someone else’s—who need to know there is a way back and that happiness can be restored. I think of the disconsolate and downtrodden who feel life has passed them by, or now wish that it would pass them by. To all of these and so many more, I say: Cling to your faith. Hold on to your hope. “Pray always, and be believing.”5 Indeed, as Paul wrote of Abraham, he “against [all] hope believed in hope” and “staggered not … through unbelief.” He was “strong in faith” and was “fully persuaded that, what [God] had promised, he was able … to perform.”6

Even if you cannot always see that silver lining on your clouds, God can, for He is the very source of the light you seek. He does love you, and He knows your fears. He hears your prayers. He is your Heavenly Father, and surely He matches with His own the tears His children shed.

In spite of this counsel, I know some of you do truly feel at sea, in the most frightening sense of that term. Out in troubled waters, you may even now be crying with the poet:

It darkens. I have lost the ford.

There is a change on all things made.

The rocks have evil faces, Lord,

And I am [sore] afraid.7

No, it is not without a recognition of life’s tempests but fully and directly because of them that I testify of God’s love and the Savior’s power to calm the storm. Always remember in that biblical story that He was out there on the water also, that He faced the worst of it right along with the newest and youngest and most fearful. Only one who has fought against those ominous waves is justified in telling us—as well as the sea—to “be still.”8 Only one who has taken the full brunt of such adversity could ever be justified in telling us in such times to “be of good cheer.”9 Such counsel is not a jaunty pep talk about the power of positive thinking, though positive thinking is much needed in the world. No, Christ knows better than all others that the trials of life can be very deep and we are not shallow people if we struggle with them. But even as the Lord avoids sugary rhetoric, He rebukes faithlessness and He deplores pessimism. He expects us to believe!

No one’s eyes were more penetrating than His, and much of what He saw pierced His heart. Surely His ears heard every cry of distress, every sound of want and despair. To a degree far more than we will ever understand, He was “a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief.”10 Indeed, to the layman in the streets of Judea, Christ’s career must have seemed a failure, a tragedy, a good man totally overwhelmed by the evils surrounding Him and the misdeeds of others. He was misunderstood or misrepresented, even hated from the beginning. No matter what He said or did, His statements were twisted, His actions suspected, His motives impugned. In the entire history of the world no one has ever loved so purely or served so selflessly—and been treated so diabolically for His effort. Yet nothing could break His faith in His Father’s plan or His Father’s promises. Even in those darkest hours at Gethsemane and Calvary, He pressed on, continuing to trust in the very God whom He momentarily feared had forsaken Him.

Because Christ’s eyes were unfailingly fixed on the future, He could endure all that was required of Him, suffer as no man can suffer except it be “unto death,”11 as King Benjamin said, look upon the wreckage of individual lives and the promises of ancient Israel lying in ruins around Him and still say then and now, “Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid.”12How could He do this? How could He believe it? Because He knows that for the faithful, things will be made right soon enough. He is a King; He speaks for the crown; He knows what can be promised. He knows that “the Lord … will be a refuge for the oppressed, a refuge in times of trouble. … For the needy shall not alway[s] be forgotten: the expectation of the poor shall not perish for ever.”13 He knows that “the Lord is nigh unto them that are of a broken heart; and saveth such as be of a contrite spirit.” He knows that “the Lord redeemeth the soul of his servants: and none of them that trust in him shall be desolate.”14

So that's my plea to you today. To remember who you are. And stop waiting around in the shadows and step out more fully and fearlessly into the sunlight. And let go of those burdens that you may not even know that you are carrying. Make sure Christ didn't suffer in vain. He wants to help you. But you need to let Him.

This world is to intensely evil for you to simply sit on the fence for any longer. Whether you like it or not, you need to pick a side. Those who try to remain on the fence, are going to be pulled off at some point, and more likely than not it may be in a direction you don't want. So take control. Start asking yourself the big questions. And start the soulsearch today.

Many of the things that we struggle with in this world can be left unworried about and forgotten as we remember, it may be in part because you have forgotten who you are. It's because you have forgotten you are loved.

Part of remembering Him, is discovering why He did what He did. And you can't  understand without knowing that He loved you enough to do it. A suffering that exquisite only occurs because someone loves someone else that incredibly much. Rediscover who you are. That He thought you knew you were worth it. That He loved you that much. And you are worth it. And He did it because He wants you back. And He wants you Home. And He was willing to do anything required to save us, and to keep us safe.

As always, I love you all. If the road seems dark ahead. If clouds gather, and if the very jaws of hell gape open the mouth wide after thee -- rejoice. for God is making you into something better. Something distinct, divine, and not of this world. Your potential is above that of the kings and queens of the earth, and any inkling of what the definition of God or Goddess even is. I testify to you that you are royalty. Each of you are Children of the LIving God. So realize that. Remember that. And start to live like that.

Take courage! For them that are with us are greater than they that be with them. We need to realize that like the youth with the prophet Elisha who, when they were surrounded by evil, was afraid, and asked, Alas, Master, what shall we do, We need to realize that fear is of the devil, and we don't have place for it, for behold, the day of the Lord is nigh at hand. And if we can but have the courage to act as such, we are to be his servants, aids to ushering the last dispensation of the final days before Christ comes again. And we have no need like fear. For like Elisha we can say to others who may be lost and floundering, as well as to our own hearts when they feel faint:

16 "...Fear not: for they that be with us are more than they that be with them."

 17 And Elisha prayed, and said, Lord, I pray thee, open [the eyes of this youth] that he may see. And the Lord opened the eyes of the young man; and he saw: and, behold, the mountain was full of horses and chariots of fire.

I plead with each of you to Forget your fear, and to remember who you are -- that you are a being of infinite divine potential, and incredible worth, from the top of your head to the tips of your toes. And you have a mission, a mission that is unique. distinct. Divinely appointed. And can only be accomplished by you, through Him. And you and only you can play the part that you were called to play.

What you think truly is what you become. So make sure you are thinking good thoughts. Make sure you are reading your scriptures. Make sure you are staying close to the truth. And I promise you that if you are doing this, and all else that you can, I promise you that you will not fall. When the rains come and the storms blow, and the shafts of the devils fly strikingly through the air, I promise you with my whole soul, because I do truly know it with my whole soul, that if you do this in that day you will not fall. Instead you will stand tall, with both your feet firmly planted on the rock of your salvation, with one hand holding Christ's, and the other extended to help up those who cannot help themselves and are kept from truth because they have forgotten where to find it. Always be aware of what you are thinking about every moment of every day because decision really do determine destiny. And because we live in a fallen world, we are surrounded by demons, remember to build an inner foundation on Christ first, trusting in His grace to pull you through, then go out, helping others second. But build that foundation first, living a life of principle, so that when you fall, you will always fall back on a life of truth and principle, for that is what will protect you when you are down, and helpless, and are surrounded by the enemy. It is the grit and guiness of principle that will give you the strength to call in upon Christ the Almighty God for your rescue. I urge you to start today so that when that day comes you will be ready. And if you are already in the thick of it? Well call out to Him all the more and I testify humbly to you, that He will provide safety to your soul. But you have to turn our to Him first. To one and all this day I proclaim that Jesus is the Christ, and that if you will turn to Him, you will be saved, for each of us truly can learn that we can, "Do all things through Christ" which strengtheneth us. It is never too late for any of us. I love each of you. And I say these things in the name of Jesus Christ, amen.

Other Inspiring texts:

living worthy of the girl you will someday marry gordon b hinckley

Cleansing the inner vessel first ezra taft benson

Some blessings come soon, some come late, and some don’t come until heaven; but for those who embrace the gospel of Jesus Christ, they come.

On those days when we have special need of heaven’s help, we would do well to remember one of the titles given to the Savior in the epistle to the Hebrews. Speaking of Jesus’”more excellent ministry” and why He is “the mediator of a better covenant” filled with “better promises,” this author—presumably the Apostle Paul—tells us that through His mediation and Atonement, Christ became “an high priest of good things to come.”1

Every one of us has times when we need to know things will get better. Moroni spoke of it in the Book of Mormon as “hope for a better world.”2 For emotional health and spiritual stamina, everyone needs to be able to look forward to some respite, to something pleasant and renewing and hopeful, whether that blessing be near at hand or still some distance ahead. It is enough just to know we can get there, that however measured or far away, there is the promise of “good things to come.”

My declaration is that this is precisely what the gospel of Jesus Christ offers us, especially in times of need. There is help. There is happiness. There really is light at the end of the tunnel. It is the Light of the World, the Bright and Morning Star, the “light that is endless, that can never be darkened.”3 It is the very Son of God Himself. In loving praise far beyond Romeo’s reach, we say, “What light through yonder window breaks?” It is the return of hope, and Jesus is the Sun.4 To any who may be struggling to see that light and find that hope, I say: Hold on. Keep trying. God loves you. Things will improve. Christ comes to you in His “more excellent ministry” with a future of “better promises.” He is your “high priest of good things to come.”

I think of newly called missionaries leaving family and friends to face, on occasion, some rejection and some discouragement and, at least in the beginning, a moment or two of homesickness and perhaps a little fear.

I think of young mothers and fathers who are faithfully having their families while still in school—or just newly out—trying to make ends meet even as they hope for a brighter financial future someday. At the same time, I think of other parents who would give any earthly possession they own to have a wayward child return.

I think of single parents who face all of this but face it alone, having confronted death or divorce, alienation or abandonment, or some other misfortune they had not foreseen in happier days and certainly had not wanted.

I think of those who want to be married and aren’t, those who desire to have children and cannot, those who have acquaintances but very few friends, those who are grieving over the death of a loved one or are themselves ill with disease. I think of those who suffer from sin—their own or someone else’s—who need to know there is a way back and that happiness can be restored. I think of the disconsolate and downtrodden who feel life has passed them by, or now wish that it would pass them by. To all of these and so many more, I say: Cling to your faith. Hold on to your hope. “Pray always, and be believing.”5 Indeed, as Paul wrote of Abraham, he “against [all] hope believed in hope” and “staggered not … through unbelief.” He was “strong in faith” and was “fully persuaded that, what [God] had promised, he was able … to perform.”6

Even if you cannot always see that silver lining on your clouds, God can, for He is the very source of the light you seek. He does love you, and He knows your fears. He hears your prayers. He is your Heavenly Father, and surely He matches with His own the tears His children shed.

In spite of this counsel, I know some of you do truly feel at sea, in the most frightening sense of that term. Out in troubled waters, you may even now be crying with the poet:

It darkens. I have lost the ford.

There is a change on all things made.

The rocks have evil faces, Lord,

And I am [sore] afraid.7

No, it is not without a recognition of life’s tempests but fully and directly because of them that I testify of God’s love and the Savior’s power to calm the storm. Always remember in that biblical story that He was out there on the water also, that He faced the worst of it right along with the newest and youngest and most fearful. Only one who has fought against those ominous waves is justified in telling us—as well as the sea—to “be still.”8 Only one who has taken the full brunt of such adversity could ever be justified in telling us in such times to “be of good cheer.”9 Such counsel is not a jaunty pep talk about the power of positive thinking, though positive thinking is much needed in the world. No, Christ knows better than all others that the trials of life can be very deep and we are not shallow people if we struggle with them. But even as the Lord avoids sugary rhetoric, He rebukes faithlessness and He deplores pessimism. He expects us to believe!

No one’s eyes were more penetrating than His, and much of what He saw pierced His heart. Surely His ears heard every cry of distress, every sound of want and despair. To a degree far more than we will ever understand, He was “a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief.”10 Indeed, to the layman in the streets of Judea, Christ’s career must have seemed a failure, a tragedy, a good man totally overwhelmed by the evils surrounding Him and the misdeeds of others. He was misunderstood or misrepresented, even hated from the beginning. No matter what He said or did, His statements were twisted, His actions suspected, His motives impugned. In the entire history of the world no one has ever loved so purely or served so selflessly—and been treated so diabolically for His effort. Yet nothing could break His faith in His Father’s plan or His Father’s promises. Even in those darkest hours at Gethsemane and Calvary, He pressed on, continuing to trust in the very God whom He momentarily feared had forsaken Him.

Because Christ’s eyes were unfailingly fixed on the future, He could endure all that was required of Him, suffer as no man can suffer except it be “unto death,”11 as King Benjamin said, look upon the wreckage of individual lives and the promises of ancient Israel lying in ruins around Him and still say then and now, “Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid.”12How could He do this? How could He believe it? Because He knows that for the faithful, things will be made right soon enough. He is a King; He speaks for the crown; He knows what can be promised. He knows that “the Lord … will be a refuge for the oppressed, a refuge in times of trouble. … For the needy shall not alway[s] be forgotten: the expectation of the poor shall not perish for ever.”13 He knows that “the Lord is nigh unto them that are of a broken heart; and saveth such as be of a contrite spirit.” He knows that “the Lord redeemeth the soul of his servants: and none of them that trust in him shall be desolate.”14

Forgive me for a personal conclusion, which does not represent the terrible burdens so many of you carry but it is meant to be encouraging. Thirty years ago last month, a little family set out to cross the United States to attend graduate school—no money, an old car, every earthly possession they owned packed into less than half the space of the smallest U-Haul trailer available. Bidding their apprehensive parents farewell, they drove exactly 34 miles up the highway, at which point their beleaguered car erupted.

Pulling off the freeway onto a frontage road, the young father surveyed the steam, matched it with his own, then left his trusting wife and two innocent children—the youngest just three months old—to wait in the car while he walked the three miles or so to the southern Utah metropolis of Kanarraville, population then, I suppose, 65. Some water was secured at the edge of town, and a very kind citizen offered a drive back to the stranded family. The car was attended to and slowly—very slowly—driven back to St. George for inspection—U-Haul trailer and all.

After more than two hours of checking and rechecking, no immediate problem could be detected, so once again the journey was begun. In exactly the same amount of elapsed time at exactly the same location on that highway with exactly the same pyrotechnics from under the hood, the car exploded again. It could not have been 15 feet from the earlier collapse, probably not 5 feet from it! Obviously the most precise laws of automotive physics were at work.

Now feeling more foolish than angry, the chagrined young father once more left his trusting loved ones and started the long walk for help once again. This time the man providing the water said, “Either you or that fellow who looks just like you ought to get a new radiator for that car.” For the second time a kind neighbor offered a lift back to the same automobile and its anxious little occupants. He didn’t know whether to laugh or to cry at the plight of this young family.

“How far have you come?” he said. “Thirty-four miles,” I answered. “How much farther do you have to go?” “Twenty-six hundred miles,” I said. “Well, you might make that trip, and your wife and those two little kiddies might make that trip, but none of you are going to make it in that car.” He proved to be prophetic on all counts.

Just two weeks ago this weekend, I drove by that exact spot where the freeway turnoff leads to a frontage road, just three miles or so west of Kanarraville, Utah. That same beautiful and loyal wife, my dearest friend and greatest supporter for all these years, was curled up asleep in the seat beside me. The two children in the story, and the little brother who later joined them, have long since grown up and served missions, married perfectly, and are now raising children of their own. The automobile we were driving this time was modest but very pleasant and very safe. In fact, except for me and my lovely Pat situated so peacefully at my side, nothing of that moment two weeks ago was even remotely like the distressing circumstances of three decades earlier.

Yet in my mind’s eye, for just an instant, I thought perhaps I saw on that side road an old car with a devoted young wife and two little children making the best of a bad situation there. Just ahead of them I imagined that I saw a young fellow walking toward Kanarraville, with plenty of distance still ahead of him. His shoulders seemed to be slumping a little, the weight of a young father’s fear evident in his pace. In the scriptural phrase his hands did seem to “hang down.”15 In that imaginary instant, I couldn’t help calling out to him: “Don’t give up, boy. Don’t you quit. You keep walking. You keep trying. There is help and happiness ahead—a lot of it—30 years of it now, and still counting. You keep your chin up. It will be all right in the end. Trust God and believe in good things to come.”

I testify that God lives, that He is our Eternal Father, that He loves each of us with a love divine. I testify that Jesus Christ is His Only Begotten Son in the flesh and, having triumphed in this world, is an heir of eternity, a joint-heir with God, and now stands on the right hand of His Father. I testify that this is Their true Church and that They sustain us in our hour of need—and always will, even if we cannot recognize that intervention. Some blessings come soon, some come late, and some don’t come until heaven; but for those who embrace the gospel of Jesus Christ, they come. Of that I personally attest. I thank my Father in Heaven for His goodness past, present, and future, and I do so in the name of His Beloved Son and most generous high priest, even the Lord Jesus Christ, amen.

Left

Rght

When you have come to the Lord in meekness and lowliness of heart and, as one mother said, “pounded on the doors of heaven to ask for, to plead for, to demand guidance and wisdom and help for this wondrous task,” that door is thrown open to provide you the influence and the help of all eternity. Claim the promises of the Savior of the world. Ask for the healing balm of the Atonement for whatever may be troubling you or your children. Know that in faith things will be made right in spite of you, or more correctly, because of you.

You can’t possibly do this alone, but you do have help. The Master of Heaven and Earth is there to bless you—He who resolutely goes after the lost sheep, sweeps thoroughly to find the lost coin, waits everlastingly for the return of the prodigal son. Yours is the work of salvation, and therefore you will be magnified, compensated, made more than you are and better than you have ever been as you try to make honest effort, however feeble you may sometimes feel that to be.

Remember, remember all the days of your motherhood: “Ye have not come thus far save it were by the word of Christ with unshaken faith in him, relying wholly upon the merits of him who is mighty to save.”10

Rely on Him. Rely on Him heavily. Rely on Him forever. And “press forward with a steadfastness in Christ, having a perfect brightness of hope.”11 You are doing God’s work. You are doing it wonderfully well. He is blessing you and He will bless you, even—no, especially—when your days and your nights may be the most challenging. Like the woman who anonymously, meekly, perhaps even with hesitation and some embarrassment, fought her way through the crowd just to touch the hem of the Master’s garment, so Christ will say to the women who worry and wonder and sometimes weep over their responsibility as mothers, “Daughter, be of good comfort; thy faith hath made thee whole.”12 And it will make your children whole as well.

In the sacred and holy name of the Lord Jesus Christ, amen.

As the Savior’s latter-day disciples, we come unto Him by loving and serving God’s children. As we do, we may not be able to avoid tribulation, affliction, and suffering in the flesh, but we will suffer less spiritually. Even in our trials we can experience joy and peace.

Filling the Measure of Your Creation

When my daughter, Mary, was just a small child, she was asked to perform for a PTA talent contest. This is her experience exactly as she wrote it in her seven-year-old script.

“What Can I Be?”

“I was practicing the piano one day, and it made me cry because it was so bad. Then I decided to practice ballet, and it made me cry more; it was bad, too. So then I decided to draw a picture because I knew I could do that good, but it was horrid. Of course it made me cry.

“Then my little three-year-old brother came up, and I said, ‘Duffy, what can I be? What can I be? I can’t be a piano player or an artist or a ballet girl. What can I be?’ He came up to me and whispered, ‘You can be my sister.’”

In an important moment, those five simple words changed the perspective and comforted the heart of a very anxious child. Life became better right on the spot, and as always, tomorrow was a brighter day.

All of us face those questions about our role, our purpose,our course in life—and we face them long after we are children. I visit with enough of you (and I remember our own university years well enough) to know that many of you, perhaps most of you, have occasions when you feel off-balance or defeated—at least temporarily. And we ask, ‘What will I be, when will I graduate, whom will I marry, what is my future, how will I make a living, can I make a contribution?”—in short, “What can I be?”

Take heart if you are still asking yourselves such questions, because we all do. I do. We should concern ourselves with our fundamental purposes in life. Surely every philosopher past and present agrees that, important as they are, food and shelter are not enough. We want to know what’s next. Where is the meaning? What is my purpose?

When asking these questions, I have found it extremely reassuring to remember that one of the most important and fundamental truths taught in the scriptures and in the temple is that “Every living thing shall fill the measure of its creation.”

I must admit that when I first heard this directive, I thought it meant only procreation, having issue, bearing offspring. And I’m sure that is probably the most important part of its meaning, but much of the temple ceremony is symbolic, so surely there can be multiple meanings in this statement as well. Part of the additional meaning I now see in this commandment is that every element of creation has its own purpose and performance. Every one of us has been designed with a divine role and mission in mind. I believe that if our desires and works are directed toward what our heavenly parents have intended us to be, we will come to feel our part in their plan. We will recognize the “full measure of our creation,” and nothing will give us more holy peace.

Each of Us Playing Our Part

I once read a wonderful analogy of the limitations our present perspective imposes on us. The message was that in the ongoing process of creation—our creation and the creation of all that surrounds us—our heavenly parents are preparing a lovely tapestry with exquisite colors and patterns and hues. They are doing so lovingly and carefully and masterfully. And each of us is playing a part—our part—in the creation of that magnificent, eternal piece of art.

But in doing so we have to remember that it is very difficult for us to assess our own contributions accurately. We see the rich burgundy of a neighboring thread and think, “That’s the color I want to be.” Then we admire yet another’s soft, restful blue or beige and think, “No, those are better colors than mine.” But in all of this we don’t see our work the way God sees it, nor do we realize that others are wishing they had our color or position or texture in the tapestry—even as we are longing for theirs.

Perhaps most important of all to remember is that through most of the creative period we are confined to the limited view of the underside of the tapestry where things can seem particularly jumbled and muddled and unclear. If nothing really makes very much sense from that point of view, it is because we are still in process and unfinished. But our heavenly parents have the view from the top, and one day we will know what they know—that every part of the artistic whole is equal in importance and balance and beauty. They know our purpose and potential, and they have given us the perfect chance to make the perfect contribution in this divine design.

The Lord. has promised us in D&C 12:7 that the only qualification required to be a part of this magnificent plan is to “have desires to bring forth and establish this work.”

Yea, whosoever will thrust in his sickle and reap, the same is called of God.

Therefore, if you will ask of me you shall receive; if you will knock it shall be opened unto you. [D&C 14:4–5]

Sometimes in our sowing and reaping and sifting, it may seem that God says “no” or “not now” or “I don’t think so” when what we want for him to say—what we wish our tapestry to receive—is an affirmative “yes” or “certainly, right now” or “of course it can be yours.” I want you to know that in my life when I have had. disappointments and delays, I have lived to see that if I continue to knock with unshakable faith and persist in My patience—waiting upon the Lord and his calendar—I have discovered that the Lord’s “no’s” are merely preludes to an even greater “yes.” I have learned in the twenty-five years since I was your age that the very delays and denials we worry about most, the very differences from each other that trouble our self-esteem, are the differences and delays that are the very best for our happiness and fulfillment.

I’ve often wondered of the struggles that may have plagued the mind of Moses when the Lord asked him to leave his royal privileges and position in order to serve him in abject poverty and meagerness. Contrast his mission with the Lord’s design for Joseph to stay in Egypt, to use his power and prestige for righteous purposes. Apparently Jeremiah was never given the blessings of marriage or children although Jacob had the comfort and companionship of four righteous women and many children. Joshua seems to have been an incredibly confident, charismatic, take-charge kind of leader, but Moses was often reluctant and tentative and sometimes had to ask the Lord twice for directions. Each had a crucial—but very different—role to play.

Furthermore, age seems to make little difference in the diversity of this tapestry. David was a Mere child when he deftly dispatched Goliath, but Abraham was more than one hundred years old when he gave us the supreme Mortal example of faith and obedience. Esther had the wealth and attention of kings, giving her the opportunity to help save a nation, whereas Ruth was a poor, unaccepted Moabite—but one whose royal blood, ironically, carried the lineage of the Son of God himself. The Lord uses us because of our unique personalities and differences rather than in spite of them. He needs all of us, with all our blemishes and weaknesses and limitations.

So what can I be? What can I be? We can be what heavenly parents designed us and intend us and help us to be. How does one fill the measure of his or her creation? We do so by thrusting in a sickle and reaping with all our strength—and by rejoicing in our uniqueness and our difference. To be all that you can be, your only assignment is (1) to cherish your course and savor your own distinctiveness, (2) to shut out conflicting voices and listen to the voice within, which is God telling you who you are and what you will be, and (3) to free yourself from the love of profession, position, or the approval of men by remembering that what God really wants us to be is someone’s sister, someone’s brother, and someone’s friend.

I bear my testimony that each of you has a purpose. It is different, it is distinct, it is divine. God lives. God loves you. And I do, too. I say this in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.

Jeffrey R Holland: The Will of the Father

At a university it seems appropriate to introduce such a message with a piece of great literature—but I decided to use this verse anyway. Rudyard Kipling, eat your heart out.

If you can smile when things go wrong

And say it doesn’t matter,

If you can laugh off cares and woe

And trouble makes you fatter,

If you can keep a cheerful face

When all around are blue,

Then have your head examined, bud,

There’s something wrong with you.

For one thing I’ve arrived at:

There are no ands and buts,

A guy that’s grinning all the time

Must be completely nuts.

[“Smile, Darn You, Smile”]

I begin with a bit of humor only because the task I wish to discuss with you this morning is a sobering one—not something we can laugh off or say doesn’t matter. It is not an issue limited to university-educated people, but it may be a particularly poignant one for them. It is a matter central to our salvation, and it may involve great pain. Unless we are “nuts,” we probably won’t grin through it all.

“I Have Suffered the Will of the Father”

Let me take a moment to set the stage. I use the word advisedly. I want to imply divine theater. Ralph Waldo Emerson once wrote, “If the stars should appear one night in a thousand years, how would men believe and adore; and preserve for many generations the remembrance of the city of God which had been shown [them]!” (Nature [1836], section 1).

In the spirit of that very provocative thought, I invite you to consider another startling—and much more important scene that should evoke belief and adoration, a scene which, like the stars at night, we have undoubtedly taken too much for granted. Imagine yourselves to be among the people of Nephi living in the land of Bountiful in approximately A.D. 34. Tempests and earthquakes and whirlwinds and storms, quickened and cut by thunder and sharp lightning, have enveloped the entire face of the land.

Some cities—entire cities—have burst into flames as if by spontaneous combustion. Others have disappeared into the sea, never to be seen again. Still others are completely covered over with mounds of soil, and some have been carried away with the wind.

The whole face of the land has been changed, the entire earth around you has been deformed. Then, as you and your neighbors are milling about the temple grounds (a place that has suddenly seemed to many like a very good place to be), you hear a voice and see a man clothed in a white robe descending out of heaven. It is a dazzling display. He seems to emanate the very essence of light and life itself—a splendor in sharp contrast to the three days of death and darkness just witnessed.

He speaks and says simply, with a voice that penetrates the very marrow of your bones, “I am Jesus Christ, whom the prophets testified shall come into the world” (3 Nephi 11:10).

There it is—or, more correctly speaking, there he is! He is the focal point and principal figure behind every fireside and devotional and family home evening held by those Nephites for the last six hundred years, and by their Israelite forefathers for thousands of years before that.

Everyone has talked of him and sung of him and dreamed of him and prayed—but here he actually is. This is the day, and yours is the generation. What a moment! But you find you are less inclined to check the film in your camera than you are to check the faith in your heart.

“I am Jesus Christ, whom the prophets testified shall come into the world.” Of all the messages that could come from the scroll of eternity, what has he brought to us? Get a pencil. Where’s my notebook? Turn on every tape recorder in town.

He speaks:

I am the light and the life of the world; . . . I have drunk out of that bitter cup which the Father hath given me, and have glorified the Father in taking upon me the sins of. the world, . . . I have suffered the will of the Father in all things from the beginning.

That is it. Just a few lines. Only fifty-two words. “And . . . when Jesus had spoken these words the whole multitude fell to the earth” (3 Nephi 11:11–12).

This introductory utterance from the resurrected Son of God constitutes my only text today. I have thought very often about this moment in Nephite history. I cannot think it either accident or mere whimsy that the Good Shepherd in his newly exalted state, appearing to a most significant segment of his flock, chooses first to speak of his obedience, his deference, his loyalty, and loving submission to his father. In an initial and profound moment of spellbinding wonder, when surely he had the attention of every man, woman, and child as far as the eye could see, his submission to his father is the first and most important thing he wishes us to know about himself.

Frankly, I am a bit haunted by the thought that this is the first and most important thing he may want to know about us when we meet him one day in similar fashion. Did we obey, even if it was painful? Did we submit, even if the cup was bitter indeed? Did we yield to a vision higher and holier than our own, even when we may have seen no vision in it at all?

One by one he invites us to feel the wounds in his hands and his feet and his side. And as we pass and touch and wonder, perhaps he whispers, “If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me” (Matthew 16:24).

If such cross-bearing self-denial was, by definition, the most difficult thing Christ or any man has ever had to do, an act of submission that would, by the Savior’s own account, cause him, “God, the greatest of all, to tremble because of pain, and to bleed at every pore, and to suffer both body and spirit”—if yielding and obeying and bowing to divine will holds only that ahead, then no wonder that even the Only Begotten Son of the true and living God “would that [he] might not drink the bitter cup, and shrink” (D&C 19:18)!

Even as we rehearse this greatest of all personal sacrifices, you can be certain that with some in this world it is not fashionable nor flattering to speak of submitting—to anybody or anything. At the threshold of the twenty-first century it sounds wrong on the face of it. It sounds feeble and wimpish. It just isn’t the American way.

As Elder Neal A. Maxwell wrote recently,

In today’s society, at the mere mention of the wordsobedience and submissiveness hackles rise and people re put on nervous alert. . . . People promptly furnish examples from secular history to illustrate how obedience to unwise authority and servility to bad leaders have caused much human misery and suffering. It is difficult, therefore, to get a hearing for what the words obedience and submissivenessreally mean—even when the clarifying phrase, “to God,” is attached. [“Not My Will, But Thine” (Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, 1988), p. 1]

After all, we come to a university, at least in part, to cultivate self-reliance, to cultivate independence, to learn to think and act for ourselves. Didn’t Christ himself say, “Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free” (John 8:32)? Such freedom is exactly what universities are about, especially this one. We try very hard here to unshackle you from the bondage of ignorance and the captivity of wrong opinions. We want you to be strong and to have the most enlightened intelligence possible. We want you to be powerful and high-principled free agents.

So how do we speak of such spiritual freedom and intellectual independence in one breath only to plead with you to be submissive and very dependent in the next breath? We do so because no amount of university education, or any other kind of desirable and civilizing experience in this world, will help us at the moment of our confrontation with Christ if we have not been able—and are not then able—to yield, yield all that we are, all that we have, and all that we ever hope to have to the Father and the Son.

The path to a complete Christian education passes through the Garden of Gethsemane, and we will learn there if we haven’t learned it before that our Father will have no other gods before him—even (or especially) if that would-be god is our self. I assume you are all far enough along in life to be learning that great discipline already. It will be required of each of us to kneel when we may not want to kneel, to bow when we may not want to bow, to confess when we may not want to confess—perhaps a confession born of painful experience that God’s thoughts are not our thoughts, neither are his ways our ways, saith the Lord (see Isaiah 55:8).

I think that is why Jacob says to be learned—or, we would presume, to be any other worthy thing—is good if one hearkens unto the counsels of God. But education, or public service, or social responsibility, or professional accomplishment of any kind is in vain if we cannot, in those crucial moments of pivotal personal history, submit ourselves to God even when all our hopes and fears may tempt us otherwise. We must be willing to place all that we have—not just our possessions (they may be the easiest things of all to give up), but also our ambition and pride and stubbornness and vanity—we must place it all on the altar of God, kneel there in silent submission, and willingly walk away.

I believe what I am describing here is the scriptural definition of a saint, one who will “yield to the enticings of the Holy Spirit,” and “through the atonement of Christ . . . becometh as a child, submissive, meek, humble, patient, full of love, willing to submit to all things which the Lord seeth fit to inflict upon him, even as a child doth submit to his father” (Mosiah 3:19).

Obedience, the First Law of Heaven

As the Great Exemplar and Daystar of our lives, is it any wonder that Christ chooses first and foremost to define himself in relation to his father—that he loved him and obeyed him and submitted to him like the loyal son he was? And what he as a child of God did, we must try very hard to do also.

Obedience is the first law of heaven, but in case you haven’t noticed, some of these commandments are not easy, and we frequently may seem to be in for much more than we bargained for. At least if we are truly serious about becoming a saint, I think we will find that is the case.

Let me use an example from what is often considered by foes, and even by some friends, as the most unsavory moment in the entire Book of Mormon. I choose it precisely because there is so much in it that has given offense to many. It is pretty much a bitter cup all the way around.

I speak of Nephi’s obligation to slay Laban in order to preserve a record, save a people, and ultimately lead to the restoration of the gospel in the dispensation of the fulness of times. How much is hanging in the balance as Nephi stands over the drunken and adversarial Laban I cannot say, but it is a very great deal indeed.

The only problem is that we know this, but Nephi does not. And regardless of how much is at stake, how can. he do this thing? He is a good person, perhaps even a well-educated person. He has been taught from the very summit of Sinai “Thou shalt not kill.” And he has made gospel covenants.

“I was constrained by the Spirit that I should kill Laban; but . . . I shrunk and would that I might not slay him” (1 Nephi 4:10). A bitter test? A desire to shrink? Sound familiar? We don’t know why those plates could not have been obtained some other way—perhaps accidentally left at the plate polishers one night or maybe falling out the back of Laban’s chariot on a Sabbath afternoon.

For that matter, why didn’t Nephi just leave this story out of the book altogether? Why didn’t he say something like, “And after much effort and anguish of spirit, I did obtain the plates of Laban and did depart into the wilderness unto the tent of my father?” At the very least he might have buried the account somewhere in the Isaiah chapters, thus guaranteeing that it would have gone undiscovered up to this very day.

But there it is, squarely in the beginning of the book—page 8—where even the most casual reader will see it and must deal with it. It is not intended that either Nephi or we be spared the struggle of this account.

I believe that story was placed in the very opening verses of a 531-page book and then told in painfully specific detail in order to focus every reader of that record on the absolutely fundamental gospel issue of obedience and submission to the communicated will of the Lord. If Nephi cannot yield to this terribly painful command, if he cannot bring himself to obey, then it is entirely probable that he can never succeed or survive in the tasks that lie just ahead.

“I will go and do the things which the Lord hath commanded” (1 Nephi 3:7). I confess that I wince a little when I hear that promise quoted so casually among us. Jesus knew what that kind of commitment would entail, and so now does Nephi. And so will a host of others before it is over. That vow took Christ to the cross on Calvary, and it remains at the heart of every Christian covenant. “I will go and do the things which the Lord hath commanded.” Well, we shall see.

In all of this we are, of course, probing Lucifer’s problem—he of the raging ego, he who always took the Burger King motto too far and had to have everything his way. Satan would have done well to listen to that wisest of Scottish pastors, George MacDonald, who warned: “There is one kind of religion in which the more devoted a man is, the fewer proselytes he makes: the worship of himself” (C. S. Lewis, ed., George MacDonald: An Anthology [New York: Macmillan, 1947], p. 110).

But Satan’s performance can be instructive. The moment you have a self there is the temptation to put it forward, to put it first and at the center of things. And the more we are—socially or intellectually or politically or economically—the greater the risk of increasing self-worship. Perhaps that is why when a newborn baby was brought before the venerable Robert E. Lee and the hopeful parents asked for this legendary man’s advice, saying, “What should we teach this child? How should he make his way in the world?” the wise old general said, “Teach him to deny himself. Teach him to say no.”

Often such an exercise in submission is as lonely as it is wrenching. Sometimes, in those moments when we seem to need the Lord the very most, we are left to obey seeminglyunaided. The psalmist cries out on behalf of all of us in such times: “Why standest thou afar off, Lord? why hidest thou thyself in times of trouble?” “Why art thou so far from helping me? . . . I cry in the daytime, but thou hearest not; and in the night season, [I] am not silent.” “Hide not thy face far from me; . . . leave me not, neither forsake me, O God of my salvation.” “Be not silent [un]to me” (Psalms 10:1, 22:1–2, 27:9, 28:1).

The psalmist’s plea rings most painfully of that ultimate anguish on Calvary, the cry that characterized an act of supreme submission: “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” (Matthew 27:46 and Psalms 22:1). And to a lesser degree we hear the supplication from Liberty Jail: “O God, where art thou? And where is the pavilion that covereth thy hiding place? How long shall thy hand be stayed. . . ? Yea, O Lord, how long. . . ?” (D&C 121:1–3).

We know a good deal about the abuse that Joseph and his colleagues suffered at the hands of their jailors. Furthermore, we know of Joseph’s submissive spirit at that time, choosing then of all moments to pen some of the most sublime language in holy writ—the appeal to maintain influence “only by persuasion, by long-suffering, by gentleness and meekness, and by love unfeigned” (D&C 121:41). What a setting in which to speak so kindly. What a brutal context in which to bring out such compassion.

But part of the story we don’t remember as well is that of fellow prisoner Sidney Rigdon. Sidney was actually released from jail some two months before the Prophet Joseph and the others, but Rigdon left muttering that “the sufferings of Jesus Christ were . . . fool[ish compared] to his” (HC 3:264).

Now it would not behoove us here in the security of our pleasant quarters to pass judgment on Brother Rigdon or anyone else who suffered these indignities in Missouri, but to say that Christ’s atoning sacrifice, bearing the weight of all the sins of all mankind from Adam to the end of the world, was foolishness compared to Brother Rigdon’s confinement in Liberty Jail smacks of that defiant and finally fatal arrogance we so often see in those who end up in spiritual trouble.

Professor Keith W. Perkins of our Church History Department has written that this moment marks the turning point for ill in Sidney Rigdon’s life (see “Trials and Tribulations: The Refiner’s Fire” in The Capstone of Our Religion: Insights into the Doctrine and Covenants, eds. Robert L. Millet and Larry E. Dahl [Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, 1989], p. 147). After this experience he was no longer the distinguished leader he truly had been in the early years of the dispensation. Soon Joseph Smith no longer felt him to be of use in the First Presidency, and after the Prophet’s death, Rigdon plotted against the Twelve in an effort to gain unilateral control over the Church. In the end he died a petty and bitter man, one who had lost his faith, his testimony, his priesthood, and his promises.

Joseph, on the other hand, would endure and be exalted when it was over. No wonder the Lord told him very early in his life, “Be patient in afflictions, for thou shalt have many; but endure them, for, lo, I am with thee, even unto the end of thy days” (D&C 24:8).

“Who are those arrayed in white before the throne of God?” John the Revelator is asked in his mighty vision. The answer: “These are they which came out of great tribulation, and have washed their robes, and made them white in the blood of the Lamb” (Revelation 7:14).

Sometimes it seems especially difficult to submit to “great tribulation” when we look around and see others seemingly much less obedient who triumph even as we weep. But time is measured only unto man, says Alma (see Alma 40:8), and God has a very good memory.

“Thou Hast Sought My Will”

Elder Dean L. Larsen writes of a Sabbath observing farmer who was troubled and dismayed to see his Sabbath-breaking neighbor bring in far better crops with a much higher, more profitable yield. But in such times of seeming injustice, we must remember that God’s accounts are not always settled in October (see “The Peaceable Things of the Kingdom” in Hope[Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1988], p. 200).

Sometimes, too, we underestimate the Lord’s willingness to hear our cry, to confirm our wish, to declare that our will is not contrary to his and that his help is there only for the asking.

Note this example taken from Elder F. Burton Howard’s biography of President Marion G. Romney. I quote Elder Howard generously in summarizing this story.

In 1967 Sister Romney suffered a serious stroke. The doctors told then–Elder Romney that the damage from the hemorrhage was severe. They offered to keep her alive by artificial means but did not recommend it. The family braced themselves for the worst. Brother Romney confided to those closest to him that in spite of his anguished, personal yearning for Ida’s restored health and continued companionship, above all he wanted “the Lord’s will to be done and to take what he needed to take without whimpering.”

As the days wore on, Sister Romney became less responsive. She had, of course, been administered to, but Elder Romney was “reluctant to counsel the Lord about the matter.” Because of his earlier unsuccessful experience of praying that he and Ida might have children, he knew that he could never ask in prayer for something which was not in harmony with the will of the Lord.

He fasted that he might know how to show the Lord that he had faith and that he would accept God’s will in their lives. He wanted to make sure that he had done all he could do. She continued to fail.

One evening in a particularly depressed state, with Ida unable to speak or recognize him, Brother Romney went home and turned as he always had to the scriptures in an effort to commune with the Lord. He picked up the Book of Mormon and continued where he had left off the night before.

He had been reading in the book of Helaman about the prophet Nephi, who had been falsely condemned and unfairly charged with sedition. Following a miraculous deliverance from his accusers, Nephi returned home pondering the things which he had experienced. As he did so he heard a voice.

Although Marion Romney had read that story many times before, it now struck him this night as a personal revelation. The words of the scripture so touched his heart that for the first time in weeks he felt he had tangible peace. It seemed as if the Lord was speaking directly to him. The scripture read:

Blessed art thou, . . . for those things which thou hast done. . . . And thou . . . hast not sought thine own life, but hast sought my will, and to keep my commandments.

And now, because thou hast done this . . . I will bless thee forever; and I will make thee mighty in word and in deed, in faith and in works; yea, even that all things shall be done unto thee according to thy word, for thou shalt not ask that which is contrary to my will. [Helaman 10:4–5]

There was the answer. He had sought only to know and obey the will of the Lord, and the Lord had spoken. He fell to his knees and poured out his heart, and as he concluded his prayer with the phrase, “Thy will be done,” he either felt or actually heard a voice which said, “It is not contrary to my will that Ida be healed.”

Brother Romney rose to his feet. It was past two o’clock in the morning, but he knew what he must do. Quickly he put on his tie and coat, then went out into the night to visit Ida in the hospital.

He arrived shortly before three o’clock. His wife’s condition was unchanged. She did not stir as he placed his hands upon her pale forehead. With undeviating faith, he invoked the power of the priesthood in her behalf. He pronounced a simple blessing and then uttered the incredible promise that she would recover her health and mental powers and yet perform a great mission upon the earth.

Even though he did not doubt, Elder Romney was astonished to see Ida’s eyes open as he concluded the blessing. Somewhat stunned by all that had happened, he sat down on the edge of the bed only to hear his wife’s frail voice for the first time in months. She said, “For goodness’ sake, Marion, what are you doing here?” He didn’t know whether to laugh or to cry. He said, “Ida, how are you?” With that flash of humor so characteristic of both of them, she replied, “Compared to what, Marion? Compared to what?”

Ida Romney began her recovery from that very moment, soon left her hospital bed, and lived to see her husband sustained as a member of the First Presidency of the Church, “a great mission upon the earth” indeed (F. Burton Howard, Marion G. Romney: His Life and Faith [Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, 1988], pp. 137–42).

We must be careful not to miss the hand of the Lord when it is offered, when it is his desire to assist. My daughter Mary made this point in a recent conversation, and I asked her permission to repeat it.

She was speaking of this ironic tendency to fear and avoid the very source of our help and deliverance, to retreat from rather than go toward our safety. She recalled the account in the fourteenth chapter of Matthew, when a storm arose on the Sea of Galilee and the ship containing the disciples was “tossed with waves: for the wind was contrary” (Matthew 14:24). In the midst of their anxiety, the disciples looked toward the shore and a being, a ghost, an apparition, was seen walking directly toward them.

This only increased their panic, and they began to cry out in fear. But it was Christ walking on the water toward them. “Be of good cheer,” he called out. “It is I; be not afraid” (Matthew 14:27). He was coming to help in their moment of need, and they, misunderstanding, were fleeing.

“This miracle is rich in symbolism and suggestion,” writes Elder James E. Talmage.

By what law or principle the effect of gravitation was superseded, so that a human body could be supported upon the watery surface, man is unable to affirm. The phenomenon is a concrete demonstration of the great truth that faith is a principle of power, whereby natural forces may be conditioned and controlled. Into every adult human life come experiences like unto the battling of the storm-tossed voyagers with contrary winds and threatening seas; ofttimes the night of struggle and danger is far advanced before succor appears; and then, too frequently the saving aid is mistaken for a greater terror. As came unto Peter and his terrified companions in the midst of the turbulent waters, so comes to all who toil in faith, the voice of the Deliverer—“It is I; be not afraid.” [Jesus the Christ (Salt Lake City: The Church of Jesus Christ of Latterday Saints, 1916), p. 337]

Our Part in This Human Drama

With that image of Christ again appearing in grandeur before us, let me conclude this drama where I began. We are taught that each one of us will come face-to-face with Christ to be judged of him, just as the world itself will be judged at his dramatic Second Coming.

I close with an adaptation of an account by C. S. Lewis entitled “The World’s Last Night,” which I have commandeered and changed for our purposes here this morning. The metaphor and most of the language is Lewis’s, but the application is my own.

In King Lear (III, vii) there is a man who is such a minor character that Shakespeare has not even given him a name: he is simply called “First Servant.” All the characters around him—Regan, Cornwall, and Edmund—have fine long-term plans. They think they know how the story is going to end, and they are quite wrong. The servant, however, has no such delusions. He has no notion how the play is going to go. But he understands the present scene. He sees an abomination (the blinding of old Gloucester) taking place. He will not stand for it. His sword is out and pointed at his master’s breast in an instant. Then Regan stabs him dead from behind. That is his whole part: eight lines all told. But, Lewis says, if that were real life and not a play, that is the part it would be best to have acted.

The doctrine of the Second Coming teaches us that we do not and cannot know when Christ will come and the world drama will end. He may appear and the curtain may be rung down at any moment—say, before we have filed out of the devotional this morning. This kind of not knowing seems to some people intolerably frustrating. So many things would be interrupted. Perhaps you were going to get married next month. Perhaps you were to graduate this spring. Perhaps you were thinking of going on a mission or paying your tithing or denying yourself some indulgence. Surely no good and wise God would be so unreasonable as to cut all that short. Not now, of all moments!

But we think this way because we keep on assuming that we know the play. In fact, we don’t know much of it. We believe we are on in Act II, but we know almost nothing of how Act I went or how Act III will be. We are not even sure we know who the major and who the minor characters are. The Author knows. The audience, to the extent there is an audience of angels filling the loge and the stalls, may have an inkling. But we, never seeing the play from the outside (as Sister Holland has just suggested), and meeting only the tiny minority of characters who are “on” in the same scenes as ourselves, largely ignorant of the future and very imperfectly informed about the past, cannot tell at what moment Christ will come and confront us. We will face him one day, of that we may be sure; but we waste our time in guessing when that will be. That this human drama has a meaning we may be sure, but most of it we cannot yet see. When it is over we will be told. We are led to expect that the Author will have something to say to each of us on the part that each of us has played. Playing it well, then, is what matters most. To be able to say at the final curtain “I have suffered the will of the Father in all things” is our only avenue to an ovation in the end. (See “The World’s Last Night,” in Fern-Seed and Elephants and Other Essays on Christianity by C. S. Lewis, ed. Walter Hooper [Great Britain: Fontana/Collins, 1975], pp. 76–77.)

The work of devils and of darkness is never more certain to be defeated than when men and women, not finding it easy or pleasant but still determined to do the Father’s will, look out upon their lives from which it may seem every trace of God has vanished, and asking why they have been so forsaken, still bow their heads and obey. [Paraphrased from C. S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters (New York: Macmillan Publishing Co., 1961), p. 39]

That it may be so in your rich and beautiful and blessed young lives—faithful to the Father in all things and to the very end—I pray in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.

Jeffrey R. Holland was president of Brigham Young University when this devotional was given on 17 January 1989.

© Brigham Young University. All rights reserved.

On Mon, Dec 5, 2016 at 12:52 PM, Jeffrey Robert Hakala <jeffrey.hakala@myldsmail.net> wrote:

"Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us."

- Marianne Williamson

Dear Friends and Family,

Recently, I've really be struggling with thinking good thoughts. Uplifting thoughts. Positive thoughts.

As a missionary, you get a lot of time to think about what matters most, and about what's really important. And what I learned in  the process of doing this is very interesting.

Answers don't necessarily come to those who need it. But to those who seek it. 

This is a battle we are in. 

Most people in the world know this. They know there is a fight going on. But what they don't know is who or what they are fighting for. They don't know who'se side they are on. And they don't know if they are going to win. They have forgotten their divine worth.

Well, we know. Or we are supposed to know, anyway. As saints of the one true church on the earth today, and as servants of the Lord, are we living the way we should so that we don't forget what we once knew. Conversion isn't a one day event people. The difference between testimony and conversion is a critical one, and if you don't understand it yet, well, it's something you need to figure out. In case you are wondering, here is my definition of the two thieir connection and the difference between them both.

Testimony is a true and abiding knowledge of this church and this truthfulness. It's a knowledge that is certain and undeniable. And its something you have if you have felt of what is true and right about this gospel, and you know the key and critical points that attest to this church as being the one that is true with the right doctrines and the correct principles.

But Conversion is something different. Testimony was only step one. So what is conversion?

Conversion is a daily commitment that is reaffirmed day by day that you are living by what you know to be true. THat you are applying your knowledge and continually growing the seed rather than losing it. That you are turning your seed of faith into a concrete commitment of lifelong covenant keeping and a foundation rooted in Christ for the awful things that may be still to come but yet you still have faith in and through Him and find peace despite all of the surrounding turmoil and chaos because of your actions. You are converted to him and He has changed you. And no matter how hard it may get you simply will not depart from it because you've already made that decision. And because you have now you are an instrument in the hands of God. 

As David A Bednar said,

"We often testify of what we know to be true, but perhaps the more relevant question for each of us is whether we believe what we know."

And I would add on to that, do we live it?

This world is struggling, and it's no wonder so many are floundering; for they have departed what they know to be truth for their own selfish desires for something that deep down in their heart their will canker and destroy but are unwilling to stay with the truth because it is boring and arduous and hard. Are we really like that? It's our choice after all if we really do want to become the sons and daughters of god with a brilliant future or lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God, in the end to find naught but darkness, and a horrifying nightmare when they realize that what they have been chasing all along has long since been lost and trodden to bits along the wayside of the road. And the prize has been chipped away and withered down until there is nothing left. If that is not what we want then we better watch ourselves and our actions, and keep the day to day things a part of our lives no matter how unworldly and unsightly they may seem. Yes its true that sometimes a movie a netflix episode a phone call or a text may seem more attractive than that little quad of scripture sitting on your nightstand but all of us at some point or another must realize what we are putting down when we decide not to pick it up.

These are the last days people! So forget about the past, and look to where you are at now, so that you can still save the future. In the words of one of my favorite fictional characters of all time, Who are you, and what do you want?

This isn't just a battle between the good side and the bad. The very battle is within each of us, every single day. Each new morning that dawns brings forth a struggle for meaning and a search for inner truths and deepened understanding. A fight for purpose. Each new day requires constant readjustment, and if we don't want to fail than we need to each and every day start to ask ourselves if what we are doing is worth what ever else it is that we are losing.

Each new day we have a daily inward search in order so that we can continue to purge the everyday outward curse.

Satan is Real. And His minions are waiting to drag us down. Are we going to let them?

I plead with each of you to look to Christ. To chase the light at the end of the tunnel. To stay the course. And I promise you that if you do, it will all be worth it. God has a plan for each and every one of us. We just need to hang on!

No one is perfect. But Christ was very clear in saying that if we can purge the inner vessel first, we will then be able to find the results we are searching for in our lives. And the number one way that I can think to do this is through an honest and clear study of the book of mormon. A renewed search in a book of scripture divinely appointed to us as the world's greatest book -- a book through which man can be brought closer to God than by any book.

After all, was it not true that concerning this record the Prophet Joseph Smith said that the Book of Mormon was the most correct of any book on earth, and the keystone of our religion, and a man would get nearer to God by abiding by its precepts, than by any other book?

Boyd K Packer said that "true doctrine, understood, changes attitudes and behavior." He said that  "the study of the doctrines of the gospel will improve behavior quicker than a study of behavior will improve behavior. [that] preoccupation with unworthy behavior can lead to unworthy behavior, [and that] that is why we stress so forcefully the study of the doctrines of the gospel.

God is the source of all truth. And it is my witness to you all this day that if we are not filling our thirsting spiritual souls every single day of our lives with this sacred and essential spiritual nourishment, we will almost certainly fall. This is a battle between what is true and what is not. Every single day of our lives Satan is spurring on His ranks of evil. Are we spurring ourselves on to combat these ranks, and are we arming ourselves properly to face the evil that so constantly surrounds us. We wouldn't send our sons out to war without a sword and a shield and a breastplate. Yet how often do we send our own children out into the world without having read the scriptures, armed with the power of the sacred word or God?

Remember the Words of Christ when He said:

 13 Enter ye in at the strait gate: for wide is the gate, and broad is the way, that leadeth to destruction, and many there be which go in thereat:

 16 Ye shall know [truth] by [its] fruits. ...every good tree bringeth forth good fruit; buta corrupt tree bringeth forth evil fruit.

 18 A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit, neither can acorrupt tree bring forth good fruit.

 19 Every tree that bringeth not forth good fruit is hewndown, and cast into the fire.

 20 Wherefore by their fruits ye shall know them.

~Matthew 7

So that's how we'll know truth. By it's fruits, we will know it. But we aren't going to be able to differentiate between it, we aren't going to be able to discern light from darkness, unless we pray for that power to know. Every day my companions and I strive to pray for the gift of discernment, and there's a reason for it. If you want to know who needs help and how to help yourself and protect your brothers sisters friends and family and all you come into contact with, I would invite you to do the same. Don't just pray. Pray to know the difference between light and dark. Pray for discernment. And pray with a purpose.

Every single day we are bombarded with information. Texts. Posts. Tweets. Status updates. Music. Television. And what was only a few years ago absolutely taboo is now being constructed in big booming letters across billboards and in public.

This is a battle that if we are not very self-aware and very tuned-in, we are going to lose. Scripture study is absolutely critical. If every minute of every day we are under attack, how could we ever think it would be all right to skip scriptures for a day, or for a week, or for a month.

Far beyond that, I would like to suggest that an honest everyday absolute commitment to the study of and constant seeking out of truth through our actions on a day to day basis is the only way we are going to make it in this world today.

Yes its hard. And yes sometimes being a disciple of Christ is quite a price to play. But maybe there's a reason for that. In one of the most sacred talks ever written by Jeffrey R Holland, and in one of the most sublime and absolutely piercing questions I have ever heard Him utter, within which is a truth that I can scarcely read without crying, He says this:

 How could we believe, how could we think, it would be easy for us when it was never, ever easy for Him? It seems to me that [all of God's children, especially those who desire to follow Him are going to] 

have to spend at least a few moments in Gethsemane, [to have to take] at least a step or two toward the summit of Calvary.

 I am convincedthat [this life]

is not easy because salvation is not a cheap experience. Salvation never was easy. We are The Church of JesusChrist, this is the truth, and He is our Great Eternal Head. 

For that reason I don’t believe [the work of good to overpower the evil]

 has ever been easy.  [Nor do I believe that] conversion is... that retention is, nor that continued faithfulness is. I believe it is supposed to require some effort,something from the depths of our soul.

If He could come forward in the night, kneel down, fall on His face,bleed from every pore, and cry, “Abba, Father (Papa), if this cup can pass, let it pass,” 16  then little wonder that salvation is not a whimsical or easy thing for us. If you wonder if there isn’t an easier way, you should remember you are not the first one to ask that. Someone alot greater and a lot grander asked a long time ago if there wasn’t an easier way.

My declaration is that this is precisely what the gospel of Jesus Christ offers us, especially in times of need. There is help. There is happiness. There really is light at the end of the tunnel. It is the Light of the World, the Bright and Morning Star, the “light that is endless, that can never be darkened.”3 It is the very Son of God Himself. In loving praise far beyond Romeo’s reach, we say, “What light through yonder window breaks?” It is the return of hope, and Jesus is the Sun.4 To any who may be struggling to see that light and find that hope, I say: Hold on. Keep trying. God loves you. Things will improve. Christ comes to you in His “more excellent ministry” with a future of “better promises.” He is your “high priest of good things to come.”

I think of newly called missionaries leaving family and friends to face, on occasion, some rejection and some discouragement and, at least in the beginning, a moment or two of homesickness and perhaps a little fear.

I think of young mothers and fathers who are faithfully having their families while still in school—or just newly out—trying to make ends meet even as they hope for a brighter financial future someday. At the same time, I think of other parents who would give any earthly possession they own to have a wayward child return.

I think of single parents who face all of this but face it alone, having confronted death or divorce, alienation or abandonment, or some other misfortune they had not foreseen in happier days and certainly had not wanted.

I think of those who want to be married and aren’t, those who desire to have children and cannot, those who have acquaintances but very few friends, those who are grieving over the death of a loved one or are themselves ill with disease. I think of those who suffer from sin—their own or someone else’s—who need to know there is a way back and that happiness can be restored. I think of the disconsolate and downtrodden who feel life has passed them by, or now wish that it would pass them by. To all of these and so many more, I say: Cling to your faith. Hold on to your hope. “Pray always, and be believing.”5 Indeed, as Paul wrote of Abraham, he “against [all] hope believed in hope” and “staggered not … through unbelief.” He was “strong in faith” and was “fully persuaded that, what [God] had promised, he was able … to perform.”6

Even if you cannot always see that silver lining on your clouds, God can, for He is the very source of the light you seek. He does love you, and He knows your fears. He hears your prayers. He is your Heavenly Father, and surely He matches with His own the tears His children shed.

In spite of this counsel, I know some of you do truly feel at sea, in the most frightening sense of that term. Out in troubled waters, you may even now be crying with the poet:

It darkens. I have lost the ford.

There is a change on all things made.

The rocks have evil faces, Lord,

And I am [sore] afraid.7

No, it is not without a recognition of life’s tempests but fully and directly because of them that I testify of God’s love and the Savior’s power to calm the storm. Always remember in that biblical story that He was out there on the water also, that He faced the worst of it right along with the newest and youngest and most fearful. Only one who has fought against those ominous waves is justified in telling us—as well as the sea—to “be still.”8 Only one who has taken the full brunt of such adversity could ever be justified in telling us in such times to “be of good cheer.”9 Such counsel is not a jaunty pep talk about the power of positive thinking, though positive thinking is much needed in the world. No, Christ knows better than all others that the trials of life can be very deep and we are not shallow people if we struggle with them. But even as the Lord avoids sugary rhetoric, He rebukes faithlessness and He deplores pessimism. He expects us to believe!

No one’s eyes were more penetrating than His, and much of what He saw pierced His heart. Surely His ears heard every cry of distress, every sound of want and despair. To a degree far more than we will ever understand, He was “a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief.”10 Indeed, to the layman in the streets of Judea, Christ’s career must have seemed a failure, a tragedy, a good man totally overwhelmed by the evils surrounding Him and the misdeeds of others. He was misunderstood or misrepresented, even hated from the beginning. No matter what He said or did, His statements were twisted, His actions suspected, His motives impugned. In the entire history of the world no one has ever loved so purely or served so selflessly—and been treated so diabolically for His effort. Yet nothing could break His faith in His Father’s plan or His Father’s promises. Even in those darkest hours at Gethsemane and Calvary, He pressed on, continuing to trust in the very God whom He momentarily feared had forsaken Him.

Because Christ’s eyes were unfailingly fixed on the future, He could endure all that was required of Him, suffer as no man can suffer except it be “unto death,”11 as King Benjamin said, look upon the wreckage of individual lives and the promises of ancient Israel lying in ruins around Him and still say then and now, “Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid.”12How could He do this? How could He believe it? Because He knows that for the faithful, things will be made right soon enough. He is a King; He speaks for the crown; He knows what can be promised. He knows that “the Lord … will be a refuge for the oppressed, a refuge in times of trouble. … For the needy shall not alway[s] be forgotten: the expectation of the poor shall not perish for ever.”13 He knows that “the Lord is nigh unto them that are of a broken heart; and saveth such as be of a contrite spirit.” He knows that “the Lord redeemeth the soul of his servants: and none of them that trust in him shall be desolate.”14

So that's my plea to you today. To remember who you are. And stop waiting around in the shadows and step out more fully and fearlessly into the sunlight. And let go of those burdens that you may not even know that you are carrying. Make sure Christ didn't suffer in vain. He wants to help you. But you need to let Him.

This world is to intensely evil for you to simply sit on the fence for any longer. Whether you like it or not, you need to pick a side. Those who try to remain on the fence, are going to be pulled off at some point, and more likely than not it may be in a direction you don't want. So take control. Start asking yourself the big questions. And start the soulsearch today.

Many of the things that we struggle with in this world can be left unworried about and forgotten as we remember, it may be in part because you have forgotten who you are. It's because you have forgotten you are loved.

Part of remembering Him, is discovering why He did what He did. And you can't  understand without knowing that He loved you enough to do it. A suffering that exquisite only occurs because someone loves someone else that incredibly much. Rediscover who you are. That He thought you knew you were worth it. That He loved you that much. And you are worth it. And He did it because He wants you back. And He wants you Home. And He was willing to do anything required to save us, and to keep us safe.

As always, I love you all. If the road seems dark ahead. If clouds gather, and if the very jaws of hell gape open the mouth wide after thee -- rejoice. for God is making you into something better. Something distinct, divine, and not of this world. Your potential is above that of the kings and queens of the earth, and any inkling of what the definition of God or Goddess even is. I testify to you that you are royalty. Each of you are Children of the LIving God. So realize that. Remember that. And start to live like that.

Take courage! For them that are with us are greater than they that be with them. We need to realize that like the youth with the prophet Elisha who, when they were surrounded by evil, was afraid, and asked, Alas, Master, what shall we do, We need to realize that fear is of the devil, and we don't have place for it, for behold, the day of the Lord is nigh at hand. And if we can but have the courage to act as such, we are to be his servants, aids to ushering the last dispensation of the final days before Christ comes again. And we have no need like fear. For like Elisha we can say to others who may be lost and floundering, as well as to our own hearts when they feel faint:

16 "...Fear not: for they that be with us are more than they that be with them."

 17 And Elisha prayed, and said, Lord, I pray thee, open [the eyes of this youth] that he may see. And the Lord opened the eyes of the young man; and he saw: and, behold, the mountain was full of horses and chariots of fire.

I plead with each of you to Forget your fear, and to remember who you are -- that you are a being of infinite divine potential, and incredible worth, from the top of your head to the tips of your toes. And you have a mission, a mission that is unique. distinct. Divinely appointed. And can only be accomplished by you, through Him. And you and only you can play the part that you were called to play.

What you think truly is what you become. So make sure you are thinking good thoughts. Make sure you are reading your scriptures. Make sure you are staying close to the truth. And I promise you that if you are doing this, and all else that you can, I promise you that you will not fall. When the rains come and the storms blow, and the shafts of the devils fly strikingly through the air, I promise you with my whole soul, because I do truly know it with my whole soul, that if you do this in that day you will not fall. Instead you will stand tall, with both your feet firmly planted on the rock of your salvation, with one hand holding Christ's, and the other extended to help up those who cannot help themselves and are kept from truth because they have forgotten where to find it. Always be aware of what you are thinking about every moment of every day because decision really do determine destiny. And because we live in a fallen world, we are surrounded by demons, remember to build an inner foundation on Christ first, trusting in His grace to pull you through, then go out, helping others second. But build that foundation first, living a life of principle, so that when you fall, you will always fall back on a life of truth and principle, for that is what will protect you when you are down, and helpless, and are surrounded by the enemy. It is the grit and guiness of principle that will give you the strength to call in upon Christ the Almighty God for your rescue. I urge you to start today so that when that day comes you will be ready. And if you are already in the thick of it? Well call out to Him all the more and I testify humbly to you, that He will provide safety to your soul. But you have to turn our to Him first. To one and all this day I proclaim that Jesus is the Christ, and that if you will turn to Him, you will be saved, for each of us truly can learn that we can, "Do all things through Christ" which strengtheneth us. It is never too late for any of us. I love each of you. And I say these things in the name of Jesus Christ, amen.