It is both an honor and a delight to be here with you this afternoon. I am grateful for the hospitality of President and Sister Clark, who have been so kind to my wife, Pat, and me. I am especially grateful to the First Presidency for this assignment to speak at your devotional today. This is not my first opportunity to speak at BYU–Idaho. The last time I spoke here at a devotional was just about four years ago. It is an experience to be savored.
I never stand before an assembly of college students that I am not carried back in memory to my own college days. I graduated college in California in 1964. Like many of you, I had completed a mission. At the time of graduation, Pat and I had been married for about six months. As yet, we had no children. During my undergraduate years, I had enrolled in an army officer training program. Upon graduation the army extended an offer for commissioning as a second lieutenant in the Regular Army, Infantry. At the time, I thought I might consider a career in the army. So, after considerable discussion, prayer and fasting, Pat and I decided to accept that offer.
In June 1964, Vietnam was, for most Americans, an obscure place on the far side of the world. Nothing much was known about it except what one might read in the capsule summaries of international news appearing on the back pages of newspapers and magazines.
I was "gung ho" in those days, and I had volunteered for training as a U.S. Army Ranger. Accordingly, after completion of the Infantry Officer Basic Course at Fort Benning, Georgia, I was granted admission to the nine-week Ranger training course, or "Ranger School," as I believe it is still known in the army.
Our class in Ranger School was what the Ranger cadre jokingly referred to as "Ranger Stew." In addition to newly commissioned lieutenants like me, there were officers and NCOs from the airborne division reconnaissance units, U.S. Army Special Forces, U.S. Navy SEALS and officers and noncommissioned officers from the U.S. Marine Corps fleet reconnaissance units.
Ranger training is a grueling course in commando and elite infantry tactics. The goal is to produce officers and noncommissioned officers highly skilled in conducting raids and reconnaissance patrols deep in enemy-controlled territory. Three weeks of the training were spent at Fort Benning. Another three weeks were spent at the Mountain Ranger Camp in the Blue Ridge Mountains of north Georgia, and another three weeks were spent in the Everglade-like swamps and along the coast of Eglin Air Force Base in the western panhandle of Florida.
The training included what the cadre referred to as a series of "confidence tests." These tests were intended as challenges to physical strength, stamina and courage. One purpose of these confidence tests was to teach us that in the difficult and trying circumstances of combat we were capable of doing more than we thought we could do. Their purpose was to teach us to have confidence in ourselves and in our own training. As it turned out, many would-be Rangers– about half the class– dropped out of the training as a result of failing these confidence tests or injuries suffered in attempting them.
Confidence tests occurred at every phase of the training. One of the very first was a climb up an 80-foot telephone pole on the edge of a small lake to a tiny platform perched on the very top. A cable extended from that platform to a tree on the other side of the lake. Upon reaching the top of the pole and teetering on the platform, we were to grasp a pulley affixed to the cable and slide down that cable until we were given a command from a Ranger officer stationed on the opposite side of the lake, whereupon we were to let go of the cable and drop into the water. Letting go too soon would result in a very long fall, and letting go too late would lead to colliding with the tree.
Still another one of our early confidence tests involved walking blindfolded, fully clothed (including combat boots), off the high dive into the base swimming pool encumbered with rifle, helmet and combat pack. This was intended to simulate wading through a swamp in the pitch blackness of night and falling off into a slough. The point of the test was to see whether encumbered with all of that equipment we could make it to the edge of the pool without panicking. Anyone who dropped his rifle or equipment failed the test.
Other tests involved scaling 100-foot cliffs and rappelling back down them, sometimes with another Ranger on your back. One of the most difficult tests was challenging in a different way. It was a 10-mile compass course that was run completely at night. We were each paired with another Ranger and equipped only with a compass, given a directional azimuth and distance to follow over rough and wooded terrain to a checkpoint. The checkpoint was simply a small metal ammunition box on a waist-high pole. There we would find another set of instructions to the next checkpoint, and so on, from checkpoint to checkpoint until we had covered the ten miles.
And so it was with these Ranger school confidence tests. But today I would like to speak to you of other– more significant– confidence tests. Not so much tests of confidence in oneself– although that is also essential and might be a subject for a different sermon than the one I wish to deliver– but of confidence in what we receive by the spirit of God. I would speak of having confidence in what we know we know. I would speak of having confidence in the Lord.
Today's world presents many challenges to our confidence in the Lord. These are not challenges of climbing telephone poles or running obstacle courses or scaling cliffs. Neither are they challenges of traversing rough and unfamiliar terrain at night. Rather, they may come as intellectual challenges questioning the still, small whisperings of the Spirit. These challenges may come in the form of the allure of unrighteousness, drawing us away from paths we know to be right. They simply may come in the form of an uncertainty– sometimes a terrifying uncertainty– about the future.
So, today I would speak of meeting these “confidence tests.” I would speak of facing down these challenges. The Apostle Paul's great epistle to the Hebrews was written to Jews newly converted to the gospel of Jesus Christ. His purpose was to help them see the importance of transferring their religious devotions from the law of Moses—which Paul said was now dead and unnecessary—to faith in the Lord, Jesus Christ, who had become the Great and Last Sacrifice. He admonished them to have "confidence" in their new faith. Said he, "Cast not away, therefore, your confidence which hath great recompense of reward."[1]
Paul admonished them to have confidence in their faith. A few verses beyond his exhortation to confidence, Paul declared that faith is the "substance (or assurance) of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen" (Hebrews 11:1). In substance, Paul's message was that we must always be forward-looking in our faith. We stand– with confidence– on truths that we have received in the past. And then we look to the future.
This great lecture on faith by Paul calls to mind Alma's great lecture on faith, as recorded in Alma 32-33. All here remember that great, dynamic sermon. Alma compared the development of faith to planting a seed and then experimenting on that seed. The seed is belief, and the experimentation is faith. The resulting spiritual assurance of the truth and validity of that seed is knowledge. And that knowledge becomes the springboard for further belief, further experimentation and so on until, eventually, one's faith ripens into a complete knowledge of the truthfulness of the gospel and the reality of the Atonement of Jesus Christ. Few, if any, reach the end of experimentation in this life. Indeed, that process of experimentation is the very process of living a faith-filled life. By definition, it ends only when this mortal existence ends. But it is engaging in that process of planting, experimenting, receiving spiritual confirmation and more planting that is the process of living the life of a disciple.
That process of discipleship is what Paul referred to when he said, "Cast not away therefore your confidence which hath great recompense of reward." The spiritual confirmation that comes from living righteous principles is faith– that is confidence in the Lord. Engaging in this dynamic process of discipleship is to engage in the greatest of all "confidence tests" — one designed by the Lord Himself.
As with Paul and Alma, prophet after prophet after prophet in holy writ has exhorted believers to remember what they already know. That is the only way in this life that we can move ahead boldly in that dynamic, mortal process of experimenting on the word. My message to you this afternoon is simply that: "Remember what you know!" "Cast not away, therefore, your confidence."
As recorded in 2 Nephi 9, that great wilderness prophet Jacob, attempting to re-kindle the faith of his people, repeatedly declared to them, "I know that ye know . . . . "
"I know that ye know that our flesh must waste away and die; nevertheless in our bodies we shall see God."[2] Or, "I know that ye know that in the body he [Jesus Christ] shall show himself unto those at Jerusalem . . . for it behooveth the great Creator that he suffereth himself to become subject unto man in the flesh, and die for all men, that all men might become subject unto him."[3] Jacob reminded his listeners that they already knew these things. But, perhaps concerned with their natural, human tendency to forget what we know in the fiery moment of adversity, he then proceeded to declare unto them the gospel of Jesus Christ–yet again–and to exhort them–yet again–to righteous living. In short, his message was simply this: remember what you know! “Cast not away therefore your confidence!”
Other Book of Mormon prophets constantly exhorted their people to remember. Time after time, Book of Mormon prophets admonished their people to remember those truths that they already knew. King Benjamin urged his people to remember "the happy state of those that keep the commandments of God."[4] He admonished them to "remember and always retain in remembrance, the greatness of God . . . "[5] In challenging his people to cleave to righteousness, Mosiah counseled his people to "remember the captivity of thy fathers in the land of Helam . . . and remember how great things he has done for them . . . "[6] In similar vein, Alma likewise admonished the people to remember their fathers' deliverance from captivity[7] and the deliverance of Lehi and his family from Jerusalem.[8] And there are numerous other such references across the pages of the Book of Mormon.
Remember what you know! That is a message that rings down the centuries. It is Paul's message of holding tightly to one's confidence. The great soldier-prophet Mormon used a different phrase to capture this same idea when he referred to faith as "a firm mind in every form of godliness."[9]
Many years ago, I lead a group of explorer scouts on a rafting trip down the Middle Fork of the Salmon River here in Idaho. As any who has been in the Idaho Wilderness Area will attest, the scenery was spectacular. Floating along on our tiny rafts through spaces of calm water, we sat with paddles on our laps just drinking in the sheer beauty of the place. But then our ears would catch, faintly at first, a low roar in the distance. As the current swept us along, the roar grew steadily louder until it became a din drowning out all other sounds. Suddenly, we were again in the white water of the rapids, paddling desperately with all our strength to avoid capsizing. Then, as suddenly as the rapids had been upon us, we were past them and again in calm water.
As I have reflected on that experience, it has seemed an apt metaphor for life itself. We are swept along by the inexorable currents of mortality, sometimes in white water, sometimes in calm. And at all times, we need our confidence in the Lord– our firm mind in every form of godliness– firmly in place.
Sometimes the “white water” comes in the form of challenges to what you or I already know to be true. I speak of so-called “intellectual” challenges, in which– with subtlety– some attempt to cast doubt on the reality of Jesus Christ or of the First Vision or to raise questions about the goodness and integrity of modern prophets, seers and revelators. When confronted with such challenges, remember what you know! Cast not away your confidence in the quiet, but oh-so-sure whisperings of the Holy Ghost that have in seasons of “calm water” filled your heart and enlightened your mind with a knowledge that this Church and this gospel are true.
Sometimes, challenges to what we know come in the form of life's crises. A few weeks ago, I sat in a sacrament service where a member of a stake high council was speaking. He related just such an experience in his own life. He explained that after serving several years in a bishopric, he had been called as a member of the high council. He and his wife had an appointment to meet with the stake president on a weeknight for his setting apart. However, on the very day of their appointment, this new high councilor's wife received some devastating news. The results of a routine cancer screening had disclosed a suspicious mass; a biopsy was scheduled for the next day. Being a physician himself, this high councilor understood the portent of such news. Thus, it was that he and his wife went to their appointment with the stake president with heavy and fearful hearts. Concerned about what probably lay ahead for his wife and for him, this good man sought to dissuade the stake president from proceeding with the call. But the stake president pointed out that the Lord knew of his wife's health condition at the time the call was extended, that He had chosen to inspire the call nonetheless and that, in any event, there were eleven other high councilors who would be eager to fill any assignment this man on occasion might be unable to fill because of family challenges. Then, these two priesthood holders—the stake president and the newly set-apart high councilor– laid their hands on the head of this stricken woman and pronounced a profoundly beautiful blessing of reassurance and health.
The next day, however, the biopsy revealed what they feared the most: she had cancer. Learning of this news, the stake president telephoned their home. They were not there, but the stake president left this message on the answering machine: "This changes nothing!" The Lord knew of her condition; a priesthood blessing had been pronounced. In a manner of speaking, she and her husband must not cast away their confidence in this moment of distress. “Remember what you know!”was in substance the message.
Ultimately, related the high councilor in this sacrament meeting talk, surgery was performed. The cancerous mass was removed with no indications that the disease had spread further. She was cured, and the priesthood blessing was realized.
This changes nothing! Cast not away, therefore, your confidence, which has great recompense of reward. Remember what you know!
With all of this as background, I wish to turn now to one of the most significant of the “confidence tests” that are faced by those in your season of life. I refer to the marriage decision.
No decision is approached with greater trepidation by this generation of young adults than the marriage decision. I don’t remember there being that much angst over this decision in my generation, although I freely admit that the problem may be more with my aging powers of recollection than with the way things really were! But of this I am sure– it is a subject that provokes much anxiety for you! I'm not sure of all the reasons that this is the case. However, here, I believe, are some of them:
First, socially many of today’s young people take themselves “out of the game,” so to speak, in finding the right companion. They do this by doing much of their socializing in groups. "Hanging out" is a common description given to the phenomenon. Some deceive themselves that because this hanging out occurs in mixed groups with males and females that they are properly engaged in the sifting process so essential to finding one's eternal companion. But this is not so. Much of hanging out, I believe, is the result of an insecurity—a fear as to how one can relate to just one person of the opposite sex. It is a "safety in numbers" approach. But it denies a person the opportunity of the close examination of the character and personality of that "special someone" so vital to making a wise choice.
Finding the “right one” is essentially a process, like buying clothes, of “trying others on” for “fit” and comfort. And– like purchasing a dress or a suit– this must be done one-on-one.
I believe that another reason for the trepidation associated with the "marriage decision" is the fear of making a mistake. Divorce statistics are well known. Some young people have lived through the heartache of seeing their own parents' marriages fail, or the marriages of friends. They have experienced exquisitely the trauma associated with such breakups. Sometimes, the effect of all this is to make them gun shy—afraid to approach marriage lest they choose the wrong person.
Yet another reason, I believe, for the concern over the marriage decision is—at least for a few—an adolescent recoiling from responsibility. A reluctance to meld one's desires and interests to those of another– the need to consider the perspective of someone else in making the decisions of life– such selfishness has a way of prompting some to postpone the marriage decision.
Whatever the reason for the fear of the marriage decision, it leads to some fallacious thinking, to a “casting away” of one’s confidence. And this, in turn, causes a person's failure to firmly grasp his or her own responsibility for making that decision. If such fear doesn't result in a postponement or an avoidance of the decision altogether, it leads to some other errors. For instance, some are inclined to treat the decision as entirely a "spiritual" one. Short-changing their own obligation to give “due process” to the decision, they wait for the functional equivalent of a divine finger writing an answer on the wall or for the seas to part or for some other metaphysical phenomenon that tells them without question that so and so is "the right one."
Others look to someone else to make the decision for them. I am told by one BYU-Provo stake president that in his experience it is not uncommon for some young women to defer to the opinion of a current boyfriend telling her that he is "the one." Or, some defer to the judgment of a parent—often a father—who has made decisions for them in the past to tell them whether or not he or she should marry a certain person. In all such instances, there is an abdication of responsibility for the most significant decision that a person makes in this life. Counsel from parents, bishops and other worthy persons can be valuable. But at the end of the day, no one else can– or should– tell you what to do. The decision of whom to marry is an intensely personal one.
"Cast not away therefore your confidence which has great recompense of reward!" Remember: we come into this life hard-wired, so to speak, to fall in love. Don't make it harder than it is! You are pre-programmed to make this decision. All you need to do is to “remember what you know,” and move forward with a confidence in the Lord and the standing you enjoy as His son or daughter.
President Faust has stated succinctly the formula for confirming that you have found the right person: "Long courtships and short engagements!" Courtship is a time for two people to get acquainted. Courtship is a time to get to know someone, his or her interests, habits, and perspective on life and the gospel. It is a time to share ambitions and dreams, hopes and fears. It is a time to test someone's commitment to gospel living.
Elder David A. Bednar of the Quorum of the Twelve– a Church officer with whom you may be somewhat familiar on this campus!– tells of a returned missionary who had been dating a special young woman. He cared for her a great deal and was seriously considering making a proposal of marriage to her. This was at a time when President Gordon B. Hinckley had counseled the members of the Relief Society to wear only one set of earrings. This young man waited patiently for awhile, said Elder Bednar, for this young woman to remove the extra set of earrings that she wore. But it did not happen. For this, and other reasons, with heavy heart he stopped dating her.
In relating this experience, Elder Bednar said,
"I presume that some of you . . . may believe the young man was too judgmental or that basing an eternally important decision, even in part, upon such a supposedly minor issue is silly or fanatical. Perhaps you are bothered because the example focuses upon a young woman who failed to respond to prophetic counsel instead of upon a young man. [But, may I just point out to you that] the issue was not earrings!"[10]
And here is another tip. As a part of this courtship experience, be careful not to base your judgments merely on what could be described as superficial "ticket punching." By that, I mean do not base your decisions solely on whether someone has served a full-time mission, or whether he or she holds a calling of responsibility in your ward. These things can be, should be—and usually are—indications of devotion, faithfulness and integrity. But not always. That is the reason you need to get acquainted. I know a former mission president with several beautiful daughters. Several of these young women accompanied their parents into the mission field. As this mission president and his wife neared the end of their three-year period of service, I asked him how the mission experience had been for their daughters. His response was interesting. Said he, "My daughters have learned that not all returned missionaries are created equal!"
My point quite simply is just this– get well enough acquainted with someone to learn their heart and their character first hand, and not just from his or her “resume.”
And here is a corollary– avoid being judgmental about someone until you get to know them. Snap negative judgments can be just as erroneous and misleading as snap positive ones. The old adage that you can't tell a book by its cover is sometimes true. In summary, be just as alert for a "diamond in the rough" as you are wary of "fool's gold."
Only after applying your own judgment and good sense to the relationship after a sufficient period of time, then put it before the Lord. Remember, like every other important decision, marriage is your choice. The Lord will expect you to exercise your judgment. As He said on one occasion to Oliver Cowdery, who desired to translate records: "Behold you have not understood; you have supposed that I would give it unto you, when you took no thought save it was to ask me."[11] Once you do your part through an appropriate courtship, and make a tentative decision, have confidence that He will respond to your supplication. Often, His answer will come as a warmth in the bosom or a feeling that your decision is right.
But, not always. Years ago, I was serving as the bishop of a ward in southern California. Because of a change in employment circumstances, our family was moving to another community. It would be necessary to replace me as bishop. The stake president asked me for my thoughts concerning possible successors. I gave him the names of several good men.
As to one of these he said, "I don't know him very well. I will find an opportunity to get acquainted." A couple of weeks later, I was again speaking with the stake president and the same subject arose in our conversation. The stake president then made this insightful observation that I have remembered ever since. Said he:
Well, I interviewed Brother So and So. But I do not think he is the man. If the Lord wants me to call him, He is going to have to tell me because I do not think he is the man.
There is a great principle here with much broader application than merely choosing a bishop. The Lord expects you to use your own good sense. He expects you to rely on your own natural feelings of man-woman attraction planted in you from birth. Once you have been drawn to a person of the opposite sex; once you have enjoyed a significant period of friendship—courtship—with him or her; once you have satisfied yourself that he or she shares your values and is someone with whom you could happily share the most intimate of relationships—then, put the matter to the Lord. The lack of a contrary impression to your own feelings may be the Lord's way of telling you that He has no objection to your choice.
Years have passed now since those challenging days in Ranger training. Mortality’s currents have swept me far down stream from the “confidence tests” of my soldiering days. But their memory and their lessons linger. And more, the validity of Paul’s admonition to “cast not away therefore” a confidence in the Lord and Jacob’s injunction to remember what we “know” have been reaffirmed time and again over the course of my life. The “white water” along the way has taught me that we are capable of weathering the storms of life, and more effectively than we might have thought. It is just a matter of always knowing what we know.
In November 1966, I had been in the combat zone in Vietnam for nearly ten months. I was an infantry platoon leader. I had experienced much of the perils, the trials, the moment-to-moment anxiety of combat. Our battalion had just returned to our base camp for some “R and R”– rest and relaxation– after several weeks in the jungles and rice paddies. It was a Saturday night. Having taken our first showers in a very long time, we were sitting around on our bunks cleaning our rifles and listening to music on the Armed Forces Radio Network. Suddenly, an urgent message crackled over our battalion radio net. A sister battalion in our brigade– still in the jungle– was being overrun by a much larger enemy force. We were needed to go, right then, to the rescue.
It is very hard to adequately describe the icy feelings that clutched at my heart in that moment. I had experienced the anxieties of combat many times before. I had seen men horribly wounded. I had seen men die. But the news that we were going again– right then– back into the jungle-...at night..to face a fierce and determined foe. That news brought with it what I can only describe as a dark sense of foreboding. Borrowing from my metaphor of this talk, I found myself yanked from “calm water” to “white water” in a matter of seconds.
How I would have liked time to prepare! Time to ponder inspiring scripture. Time to pray...to fast, even. Time to “gird up [my] loins.” But there was no time. I only could grab my helmet, my rifle, give some terse orders to my men and move out. But one thing I could do was to utter a silent prayer in my heart. And as I did, there came to my mind– literally– a “still, small voice.” The voice repeated the words to a passage of scripture that I had memorized in seminary, and memorized again as a missionary. Words that have become my very favorite in all scripture: “Trust in the Lord with all thine heart, and lean not unto thine own understanding. In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he will direct thy paths.”[12] As those words came to mind, peace filled my heart. The foreboding retreated.
More weeks passed. We remained in the jungle on that operation following that nocturnal SOS message. Finally, it was the very last day of this particular operation. I was riding in an armored personnel carrier through a lightly forested area of jungle. Suddenly, an enormous explosion beneath the vehicle seemed to lift it off the ground. Some enemy soldiers nearby had detonated a huge landmine. The engine was blown out. The tracks and all the road wheels were blown off. Everyone inside, including me, was wounded. But no one died.
And in that very moment, there again came to my mind that same still voice and that same passage of scripture. “Trust in the Lord with all thine heart, and lean not unto thine own understanding. In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he will direct thy paths.”
My dear young friends, I speak to you today not from the realm of theory but from intense, personal experience in the– at times quite literal– fiery trials of life. As with Alma, “I speak in the energy of my soul.”[13] Borrowing his expression: “Do ye not suppose that I know these things of myself. Behold, I testify unto you that I do know that these things whereof I have spoken are true.”[14]
“Cast not away therefore your confidence which has great recompense of reward.” Have confidence in what you know! And you will meet your own “confidence tests” with courage and grace. And the Lord will surely direct thy paths...
Notes
[1] Hebrews 10:35
[2] 2 Nephi 9:4; emphasis added
[3] 2 Nephi 9:5; emphasis added
[4] Mosiah 2:41; emphasis added
[5] Mosiah 4:11; emphasis added
[6] Mosiah 27:16; emphasis added
[7] Alma 5:6
[8] Alma 9:9
[9] Moroni 7:30; emphasis added
[10] Elder David A. Bednar, “Quick to Observe,” Ensign, December 2006
[11] D&C 9:7
[12] Proverbs 3:5-6
[13] Alma 5:43
[14] Alma 5:45