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“Too
often opportunities to serve and sacrifice are spontaneous—they come
at a moment when we expect them least,” Gordon Westenskow
told students during his devotional address Tuesday at Brigham Young
University-Idaho.
Referring to a story he heard 35 years ago, Westenskow,
who serves as the director of admissions at BYU-Idaho, compared
life’s challenges to grabbing a king cobra by the tail.
The story was told to him by a family friend who moved his family to
Thailand in
the 1960s where he helped drill wells for agricultural purposes. On one
occasion, this friend had brought his three sons along on a trip to a
survey site.
Riding in a convoy, one of the lead vehicles had ran
over the tail of a large snake. Wanting a souvenir, this friend ordered his
driver to stop while he got out and picked up what he thought was the skin
of a boa constrictor. The tail however, was that of a king cobra, which
soon raised its head out of the tall grass.
He said his friend always told him while speaking of this
experience, “I knew I was dead, but I didn’t want it to get my
little boys.”
“I don’t know how that strikes you, but to me,
it’s an enormous message and example of a father’s willingness
to sacrifice for his children . . . sounds a little similar of our Heavenly
Father,” Westenskow said.
He finished the story by saying his friend had starting a whipping
action to try to flip the head of the snake back down, while the driver took
his children to a safe place and returned to help control, kill, skin and
obtain his souvenir.
Westenskow then asked students to think of
sacrifices that have been made by pioneers, parents, church members,
soldiers, missionaries, friends and others.
Like them, he said his friend probably didn’t wake up in the
morning anticipating to potentially make an ultimate sacrifice, emphasizing
that most opportunities to serve come when least expected.
“I can only say that if you’ve ever been on the end of
needing help and received it, you’ve probably had a life-changing
experience because you never look at that person in the same way
again,” he said. “You look at that person with greater love and
respect because they did something for you.”
Westenskow then turned to Acts 4:13, where
it says the people “marveled” at Peter and John because,
despite being “unlearned and ignorant,” the people “took
knowledge of them, that they had been with
Jesus.”
“Think
of this institution we are a part of, think of the church that sponsors
this institution. This is His church, this is His university, His
educational system, His priesthood,” he said. “His testimony
should be written on our hearts so that we too might someday say that we
had been with Jesus.
“Because
you may not have a degree at this point the world may still classify you as
unlearned. But have you been with Jesus?” he asked.
Speaking
of Jesus Christ, Westenskow then told students,
“The Savior increased in wisdom, stature and in favor with God and
man. Hopefully that’s what you’re experiencing here and these
blessings which have been bestowed upon us in this wonderful setting are
such as he has.”
Concluding,
he said, “When the time comes, and I can almost promise you they will
come, where you will take hold of a king cobra [and] you will have your
challenges, will you be ready, will you be prepared?
“The real test
comes,” he continued, “that your
friends, your employers, your employees, your associates in church or in
the world, that they might look upon you with wonder and amazement and say
of you, because you have been here they’ve been with Jesus.”
Next week’s devotional speaker will be Elder Ronald T.
Halverson, a member of the Second Quorum of the Seventy. Devotionals are
broadcast live on Tuesdays at 2 p.m.
and again at 9 p.m. on KBYI, FM
100.
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