BYU-Idaho’s Dean of Academic Success and Interdisciplinary Studies spoke about the power of choosing love in his devotional address on Tuesday.
Jim Lawrence used his experience and expertise in asphalt and pavements as inspiration for parts of his talk and he goes on to compare love to welding iron.
“Just like welding iron to iron, love binds us together,” Lawrence said. “However, if hatred, contention, anger, contempt, or indifference is allowed to consume us, it can strip love from our hearts leaving us vulnerable as individuals and as a society.”
In an interview with BYU-Idaho Radio, Lawrence said he felt inspired to speak about love as soon as he was asked to speak at devotional.
3:31 “I felt very inspired, right from the beginning when they asked me to do this, to speak about love,” Lawrence said. “And as I thought what happens with love and how love is something that we can hold onto, or we allow things to get in between us and love and separate us from that.”
In addition to trying to love others, Lawrence also said it is important to learn to love oneself too. He said for him, coming to love himself and sharing that love with others has been a lifelong process.
6:50 “This is a lifelong process, and it grows and grows, just learning how much God loves me individually,” Lawrence said. “Sometimes when we look at that in the moment, it’s really hard to see, but when we look back, it’s a lot easier. At least it has been for me.”
Lawrence said he felt his topic is relevant because of how divisive the world seems to become.
13:40 “We can change the world one person at a time and that has to happen through love,” Larence said. “We’re not ever going to change this world by being contentious and hateful. We’re only going to change it by being understanding and caring and loving and that doesn’t mean that we have to accept the decisions of other people, but we can be understanding of those decisions.”
To listen to the full interview with Jim Lawrence, go to BYU-Idaho Radio’s podcast on Spotify, YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts.