Brother Spencer Allen is usually the man behind the scenes making sure devotional is flowing smoothly, but today he is the speaker.
Allen is the A/V Services Coordinator and Teleprompting Operator at BYU-Idaho. He talked to BYU-Idaho Radio about his devotional talk, “God’s Will: Where are You? What are You Doing?”
“My first Tuesday in devotional,” Allen said, “I was sitting there and I was thinking ‘This is neat. I have this great job. I’m being paid to go to devotional and listen to wonderful speakers.’ Then I thought, ‘If I was ever given the chance to give a talk, what would I talk about?’”
And for the following years, ideas about faith, the will of God, and agency started to connect.
Allen was raised in small-town Malad City, Idaho where everybody knew each other.
“You were kind of pigeon-holed into ‘This is who you are, and this is what we expect out of you,” Allen explained, “In my case that was bad because it didn’t challenge me much.”
On his mission he discovered that he could be whomever he wanted to be, because no one knew his background. He began developing his own personality, spirituality, and knowledge.
In his devotional address he talked about how he came to realize God’s love for him on his mission, and he began seeking the will of God. He showed a video of students being interviewed on campus and answering the questions, “What is the will of God? How do I find it?” Allen then listed a number of things we can do to find God’s will individually as well as collectively. He quoted a previous devotional speaker.
“Last week’s devotional speaker, Steve Clark, urged us to come to devotional. Physical attendance can allow the Spirit to work on us collectively to know Heavenly Father’s will for us as a campus and as individuals.”
He finished his devotional talk by sharing an experience where he sought for God’s will in his job hunt post-graduation. At the time, it just seemed like the perfect jobs for him were slipping through his fingers. But years later, when he was going through some boxes and found the rejection letters, he realized God had His own timing.
“I had to wait that year-and-a-half to two years for events to happen in Virginia Tech. for the ‘good, better, best’ job to happen,” he told BYU-Idaho Radio, referring to a talk by President Dallin H. Oaks, a member of the First Presidency of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in the October 2007 General Conference.
You can listen to Allen’s devotional address here.