I gave a talk at stake conference tonight (the patriarch speaks every year or so). Since I don't want anyone to miss a word I say, I thought I would post it for your consumption. I know everyone has been waiting for just such a post!
My friends, my brothers and sisters,
You and I are part of a great fellowship, bound together by oaths and covenants: covenants that the Lord, in words spoken to Jeremiah, has “written on our hearts, and placed in our inward parts,” so that “He will be our God and we shall be His people.” (see Jeremiah 31:33)
The next day after the awful events of September 11, 2001, members of the Quorum of the Twelve and other general authorities and church educational leaders were waiting to be joined by President Hinckley. Elder Bednar, then President of BYU-I, was in the group. Quiet greetings were exchanged, but there was no mention of the terrible events of the day before. Elder Bednar stated that earlier with his wife, he had wondered what the Prophet would say at such a time. Pres. Hinckley arrived, greeted everyone, and shook hands. He then took his place and simply said, “Brothers and sisters, we live in troubled times. Now let’s get to work.” (Stand Ye In Holy Places, Pres. David A. Bednar, Mothers’ Weekend, March 22, 2002)
In a body this large, made up of my covenant friends, I know that some of you feel like a plane has just hit your tower. Most have felt that way at one time or another, others will yet feel it: none will be spared. Perhaps you have lost a spouse (there is more than one way to do that, sometimes they still share your dinner table, yet they feel lost to you). Perhaps you find yourself praying that the Lord would send an angel with a flaming sword to stop a wayward child in his paths; and it hasn’t happened. Perhaps you have even felt doubts, wondering if somehow Alma or Lehi, who did receive such parenting assistance, somehow merited more of the Lord’s love than you do. Perhaps your job is lost or in some other way the temporal security of your home is threatened.
I suppose than in one way or another, I have felt all these things. Somehow though, President Hinckley’s words on the day after 9-11 come to mind. “Brothers and sisters, we live in troubled times, let’s get to work.”
The work that will save us is to shore up our faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. It is good to store cases of food under the bed and in the garage, but inadequate, unless we first solidify our faith in Jesus Christ. Someone has observed that faith has a short shelf life. It must be constantly nourished and cared for.
My understanding of faith has been assisted by a phrase from the Old Testament book of Daniel. It is a short phrase, easily over-looked and seldom mentioned in the telling of a very old and familiar story. It is one of those introductory phrases, like many in the Bible and The Book of Mormon, (and almost nowhere else in literature), that begins with a preposition. You will remember that the Hebrew servants, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego were brought before the Babylonian King Nebuchadnezzar and threatened with their life because they refused to bow down and worship an idol formed by the king. The king threatened that if they continued to refuse, they would be cast into the fiery furnace and that they could then see if their God could deliver them from their fate. In their answer to the king, they replied that if it be God’s will, He could deliver them as the king had said. But then they answered with the phrase I have made reference to, they say, “But if not, be it known unto thee, O king, that we will not serve they gods, nor worship the golden image which thou has set up.” (see Daniel 3:18). In other words, their faith in the Lord was not dependent upon their being rescued from the fire.
Brothers and sisters, our faith can’t be based on such conditions either. Remember Stephen, who being stoned, gazed into heaven and saw Jesus Christ sitting on the right hand of God. But, he still was stoned to death. He wasn’t delivered but don’t you suspect that in his martyrdom he even found joy at this most welcome sign of the acceptance of his sacrifice. We remember large numbers of saints who are buried on the trail from Nauvoo to the Salt Lake Valley. I suspect that they had as much faith as the three Hebrews who were thrown into the furnace. Yet they perished along the way—one for every mile of the trek. It seems to me that most of us, like the survivors of the Martin Handcart Company, can testify that we most often find the Lord “in our extremities”. That is, when pushed to our limits. Elder Oaks has taught that in his personal life, he doesn’t feel that he has learned very much at times when all was going well. The great lessons of life are learned in times of hurt and sorrow.
Sometimes, the prayers that aren’t answered, can’t be, because they involve the agency of another person. We pray that someone we love will do such and such. We might even put conditions upon the Lord as to what He must do to continue to merit our faith and love. We might even approach Him with some anger and thus fail to understand that in His love for us, he is giving us the opportunity to make changes that are needed so that, through us, He might bless the ones for whom we pray.
Our Savior bids us “Come unto me”. It is recorded in different language throughout the scriptures. Nephi records, after asking rhetorically if the people could even imagine the Lord sending them away, then records the Savior’s words, “come unto me all ye ends of the earth. Buy milk and honey, without money and without price.”
Matthew records the familiar words in chapter 11—“Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly of heart; and ye shall find rest unto your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”
Perhaps, some, like me, have not understood this verse quite as it is written. For all my life, I have read it and heard it read, and imagined myself casting my burdens upon the Lord and having Him lift a yoke from my neck and place it upon his own. However, that isn’t how it is written. He invites us to take His yoke upon us—that is, share in His work—and in the doing of that, we discover that His yoke is easy and His burden is light.” When we lose ourselves in His work, that is “bringing to pass the immortality and eternal life of man” we discover our burdens, as well as His, are made lighter, our hearts expand, and our faith grows. With this expanded view of what it means to take His yoke upon us, we can see why the baptismal covenant requires us to “comfort those who stand in need of comfort”…or, in other words, also take upon us the yoke of our brothers and sisters.
Sometimes, our faith is hampered by conditions we have placed on the Lord. Perhaps we have prayed for something for a long time and it hasn’t come to pass. Perhaps it is time to examine the prayer. Perhaps it is time to examine our self. Perhaps at times when the earth has been dry and thirsty we have been praying for rain, and even though we needed the rain, what the Lord knew we really needed, was to remember Him who sends the rain.
Isaiah 53 “surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows…and with His stripes we are healed.” Then Elder Holland adds “IF WE WANT TO BE.” It is a unique doctrine to our people, that the atonement can cover both our sins AND OUR SORROWS. Sometimes, if we dwell too much on our sorrows instead of the atonement, we may miss the actual healing that He wishes to send to us. What if Abraham had missed seeing the “ram in the thicket” when it was sent?
Isaiah 12:2 “Behold, God is my salvation, I will trust and not be afraid: For the Lord Jehovah is my strength and my song: He also is become my salvation.”
Paul, in writing to the Corinthians uses language borrowed from Isaiah when he describes how the Lord wishes to bless us. He declares…,”eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, nor hath entered into the hearts of men, all that the Lord has reserved for them that love Him.” I have matured somewhat in my understanding of what the Lord sends to us in way of blessings. Material things, health, days of peace, are great blessings IF they help us become more like our Savior. A broken leg can be a blessing, if it leads us closer to our Savior.
My testimony is that Jesus of Nazareth was, and is, our Savior. I sometimes hear Him referred to in warm and fuzzy terms—our Elder Brother—comes to mind. I will confess that I always get a little uncomfortable at such times. I think that when I see Him (if, in His mercy He allows His grace to forgive enough that I am allowed to endure His presence), I will kneel and worship Him. He is my God. He invites all to, “Come unto me all ye ends of the earth. Buy milk and honey without money, and without price.”
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The Red Sea Place
Have you come to the Red Sea place in your life,
Where in spite of all you can do,
There is no way out, there is no way back,
There is no other way but through?
Then wait on the Lord with a trust serene
Till the night of your fear is gone;
He will send the wind, He will heap the floods,
When He says to your soul, “Go on.”
And His hand will lead you through–clear through–
Ere the watery walls roll down,
No foe can reach you, no wave can touch,
No mightiest sea can drown;
The tossing billows may rear their crests,
Their foam at your feet may break,
But over their bed you shall walk dry shod
In the path that your Lord will make.
In the morning watch, ‘neath the lifted cloud
You shall see but the Lord alone,
When He leads you on from the place of the sea
To a land that you have not known;
And your fears shall pass as your foes have passed
You shall be no more afraid;
You shall sing His praise in a better place,
A place that His hand has made.
-Annie Johnson Flint
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