A Life of Learning
President Henry B. Eyring
July 20, 2022
My beloved brothers and sisters, I am grateful for the opportunity to share this day with you. For the graduates, it is a time of celebration and of gratitude. You have succeeded as a university student. You are grateful for the family members and teachers who cared about you. Your parents and teachers are grateful that you rose to the possibilities they saw in you. Your Heavenly Father and the Lord Jesus Christ, whose school this is, smile down upon you with loving approval for what you have accomplished.
You accepted the invitation to learn what is true by the Spirit. The experiences I had as a student and in leading this school confirm my testimony that we can learn and be led by the Spirit if we so choose. As a physics student, I once had the Spirit reveal as true the solution of a complicated mathematical problem. As a leader and teacher in this school, I felt revelation to know what the Lord wanted me to say in classrooms as a teacher and in faculty meetings as a leader.
My desire in the introduction to this message today is to reassure you about your future. You have learned by your own experience with BYU–Idaho and—for some of you—with BYU–Pathway how to learn by the Spirit. Also, you have learned by the Spirit and by observation how teachers help others identify truth. You have felt the love of great teachers—both for the truth and for you.
The reason that is so comes from the essential truth of who we are. Before we were born into mortality, we were spirit children of Heavenly Father. We learned lessons in the spirit world. We made choices about what was true and what was false. We were individuals. We learned by experience and through instruction.
As we came into mortality, we had a veil placed over our memories of those lessons in the spirit world. Yet, each of us came to earth with a specific trait we inherited from our loving Father. It is a natural thirst to continue to learn and to progress.
We have the wonderful assurance that our Heavenly Father is ready and eager to bless us with knowledge. The Lord spoke through the words of the Prophet Joseph Smith this wonderful news: “As well might man stretch forth his puny arm to stop the Missouri river in its decreed course, or to turn it up stream, as to hinder the Almighty from pouring down knowledge from heaven upon the heads of the Latter-day Saints.”[1]
Whatever your current or future situation, I urge you to seek experiences that will increase your knowledge and enlighten your understanding. You should decide and commit now to make your home a house of learning, surrounding yourselves with scriptures, good books, uplifting music, and other learning activities.
Some of you may choose formal educational routes to continue your life of learning. Some will make contributions in science, medicine, or business. Some will create art. But all of you have the potential to have a righteous influence in the lives of your families, friends, colleagues, or students.
Now, I realize that some of you feel a need for a rest from trying to continue to learn. Some of you graduates may be feeling ready for a change from the struggle to grasp new ideas and answer unfamiliar questions.
When I graduated in physics, the four years had been hard for me. By the last year, I began to see that each course seemed harder and harder than the one before. I was eager to do something other than keeping on with the struggle to learn.
But I learned what you will discover. My first job was what I thought would be easy routine. Within a month, I was assigned a task that took more knowledge of physics than I had known existed. Each time I came to understand one idea, another one would come along that was even more difficult.
Wherever you go after graduation, there is no end to the need for learning in any task that is not boring. For instance, an auto mechanic has learned how to use the power of computing. And then the computers will change, and he or she will have to stretch again to new insights.
The list of jobs in which rapid change—and thus rapid learning will continue—is endless. That will be true for the teacher, the plumber, the shopkeeper, the doctor, the nurse, and the librarian. I found what you will find: as children of God, we have an inborn desire to learn. We have the promise that what we must do is ask in faith for the power to learn. Our prayers will be answered with opportunity.
Never forget this scriptural promise: “If thou shalt ask, thou shalt receive revelation upon revelation, knowledge upon knowledge, that thou mayest know the mysteries and peaceable things—that which bringeth joy, that which bringeth life eternal.”[2]
It is important to note that the promise of inspiration hinges on our desires. Our prayer for knowledge and for learning will be answered when our desire—as nearly as we can align it—is what Heavenly Father and the Savior desire. They send the Holy Ghost to reveal the knowledge we seek and need.
From that scriptural promise and others like it, I foresee a wonderful future of lifelong learning and progress for you graduates, for this university, and for all of the educational efforts of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
As you apply the principles of personal revelation, you will see a steady increase in your desires and abilities. That increase will continue for graduates, for students, for teachers, and for leaders. It will come from daily repentance, more frequent prayer, and steady savoring of the words of scripture and of living prophets.
My optimism in that regard stems from what I have observed and experienced since childhood. It continued as I served as an early-morning seminary teacher when only a few sleepy-eyed high school students responded enthusiastically to my teaching of the Old Testament.
Later, when I came as a young man to serve as president of this school, I found a place where students knew and loved scripture and where a teacher, with whom I co-taught, received inspiration as we prepared to teach. We then drew inspiration and testimony from students as we invited them to speak. I sometimes now meet some of those students of years ago. As I do, I feel the joy again of the revelation we felt in those moments of learning together.
In the years that have followed, I have traveled the world to observe the increasing flow of inspiration in Church schools. I have seen the reach of the Church’s inspired educational system go across the world, always with the influence of faith and the Holy Spirit at the heart in every learning setting—from large lecture halls to an individual before a computer screen.
I have seen a steady increase in the proportion and number of students, teachers, and leaders who live and learn under the influence of inspiration from God. It has been wonderful to me to see that unfolding miracle as a part of the continuing Restoration and the accelerating gathering of Israel. The future for you, for this university, and for the Church educational system grows brighter every day. I pray that your desire and prayers to be taught and led more by the Spirit of God will be realized.
I leave you my love and my witness. God loves you. Jesus is the living Christ. This is His Church. The Holy Ghost has confirmed truth to you today, and He will throughout your lifetime of learning as you seek and qualify for it. In the name of Jesus Christ, amen.
[1] Doctrine and Covenants 121:33.
[2] Doctrine and Covenants 42:61.