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“You
are at a crossroads in your personal journey to your own, individual
promised land,” Staci Peters told students
during her devotional address Tuesday at BYU-Idaho.
Peters,
a former member of the Relief Society General Board who lives in Provo, Utah,
focused her remarks on the journey many students are making now as they
prepare and plan for the future.
She
recalled a particular Sunday night when she was a college student trying to
plan out her future after graduation. Despite careful planning and diligent
study, she was still unsure of the direction she should take, which
eventually led to a “meltdown” that Sunday night.
While
she had general faith that all would be well, she was looking for something
more concrete, “something along the lines of a detailed game plan for
the following 10 years or so delivered by an angel who would then sit
patiently and answer all of my questions.”
No
such plan arrived, which led her to make a very expensive phone call to her
parents who were living abroad. With a hint of exasperation in her voice,
her mother told her, “Staci, you are not
going to be able to plan every step of your life tonight. . . .You=ve just got to prepare yourself and then step out into
the dark. Things will work out.”
Peters
said it was the most disappointing and expensive advice she had ever
received, but in the days and years following, the message became more and
more clear and she began to understand what her mother was really talking
about.
“I
was focused too much on that which I could not necessarily control, and not
enough on preparing myself for the opportunities that were already in the
process of unfolding under the Lord=s careful
direction,” she said.
She followed
her experience with five key aids to aid in one’s own journey through
life: Recognize and cultivate your righteous desires, prepare for the
unexpected, accept adversity, practice patience and be active in church.
She said
everyone has some very personal desires concerning the unique contribution
they want to make to this world with the set of gifts and talents they have
been given.
“Regardless of the
inspired plans we make for our life,” she said, “we do well to undergird those plans with a desire to ‘be the
means of doing much good,’ with a willingness to leave the
particulars to the Lord, for that is where spiritual safety and true
happiness lie.
“We must learn the
spiritual balance of cultivating our righteous desires and allowing the
Lord to put those desires to use in perhaps an unexpected way,” she
continued.
In speaking of adversity, she
said, “If we are doing all we can to live
the commandments and challenges arise, we would do well to say not
‘what is wrong?’ but ‘what is right?’ What divine
purpose is being accomplished here?
“Peace comes when we
learn to trust that such a purpose exists and are willing to submit to the
tutoring that such experiences offer,” she continued.
She said some of the greatest
challenges in life come in dealing with unfulfilled expectations. Not only
when unexpected things happen, but when those things do not occur in the
time or the way we had hoped.
“Sometimes when our
expectations are frustrated,” she said, “we are tempted to give
up and sit down on the bench rather than stay in the game and patiently
explore an inspired, alternative path.”
Peters concluded her remarks by
issuing a challenge. “I invite you to make a commitment to yourself
and to your Father in Heaven and to your future children today that no
matter what challenges, adversities, temptations or doubts come into your
life or into your heart, you will not walk away from the Church of Jesus
Christ,” she said. “Walking away from the Church of Jesus
Christ is walking away from Jesus Christ.”
Next week’s devotional
speaker will be Gordon
Westenskow, director of
admissions at BYU-Idaho. Devotionals are broadcast live on Tuesdays at 2 p.m. and again at 9 p.m. on KBYI, FM 100.
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