Susan and I rejoice with you on this special day, and we congratulate you on your graduation from Brigham Young University-Idaho. Today is a day I hope you always will remember with appreciation for the family members, friends, and countless other people who helped you to reach this important milestone in your life.
Susan and I consider the years we spent at BYU-Idaho to be some of the most instructive and memorable of our lives. We love the people with whom we served and from whom we learned so much. Even though we moved from Rexburg to Salt Lake City almost 20 years ago, the enduring impact of our time at BYU-Idaho influences us every single day. We love you, and we love Brigham Young University-Idaho.
Commencement Ceremonies
Over the course of my life, I have participated in commencement ceremonies as a student, as a parent, as a professor, as a university president, as a member of the Church Board of Education, as a friend, and as a spectator. I frankly cannot recall precisely how many commencements I have attended, but it is indeed a very large number. And I readily admit that I genuinely enjoy commencement day on a university campus.
My experience in commencement ceremonies has helped me learn a valuable lesson. Namely, graduates and their families care little about and rarely remember anything a commencement speaker says. I certainly believe that truth applies today. So, my graduation gift to you is a shorter-than-you-probably-expect commencement message.
I pray for the assistance of the Holy Ghost as I express gratitude for the service of President and Sister Eyring and discuss with you how the principle of “believing is seeing” can bless us in both time and eternity.
President and Sister Eyring
Elder D. Todd Christofferson highlighted many of the important accomplishments of President Henry J. and Sister Kelly Eyring when he announced in May the appointment of Elder Alvin F. Meredith III as the 18th President of Brigham Young University-Idaho.
As you heard President Eyring describe, he has a deep love for and a long history with this campus. He was a little boy growing up in Rexburg in the 1970s during the time his father was the president of Ricks College. In his adult years, he served at the university for eleven years in leadership positions, including advancement vice president and academic vice president before becoming the president in 2017. And his six years of presidential leadership and Sister Eyring’s example and influence have blessed the lives of countless students, staff, faculty, and community members. President Eyring clearly has been shaped by and helped to shape this marvelous institution of higher education.
But the most important contribution the Eyrings have made to this institution is what they did not change. In October of 2006, I was assigned to preside at the groundbreaking ceremonies for this BYU-Idaho Center and for the Manwaring Center renovation project. In my devotional message that day, I raised a voice of warning and made a solemn promise.
I warned that if the day ever were to come that intellectual arrogance, a lack of appreciation, and a spirit of demanding entitlement took root on this campus—among the students, faculty, employees or the administration, or within the community—then in that day the Spirit of Ricks would be well on the way to being extinguished—and the heavenly influence and blessings that have prospered this institution and the people associated with it would be withdrawn. I also promised that as long as intellectual modesty, humility, gratitude, obedience, and frugality continued to characterize those who learn and serve at BYU-Idaho, then this university would shine forth ever brighter as a beacon of righteousness and of inspired educational innovation.[1]
Today, I simply say to President and Sister Eyring: thank you for preserving safeguarding, and enhancing the things that matter most at Brigham Young University-Idaho. I commend you for your devotion to the Savior and for your faithful service at this remarkable university. You have modeled “intellectual modesty, humility, gratitude, obedience, and frugality” in ways that have allowed BYU-Idaho to continue to shine with the brightness that prophetic leaders have charged this university to carry since its founding.
On behalf of the First Presidency and the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, I thank and express gratitude to President and Sister Eyring for all you have done and for all that you are.
Believing Is Seeing
Before my call to serve as a member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, I spent a good portion of my life immersed in a professional world governed by the principle that “seeing is believing.”
During my university studies and subsequent career, I learned about the scientific method, studied sophisticated conceptual and statistical analytical techniques, and applied these tools to a wide range of educational and organizational questions. I conducted research, collected and analyzed data, and tried as objectively as possible to identify trends, formulate valid conclusions, and generate appropriate solutions. In my work life, I was a natural man in a fallen world using secular methodologies to address a wide variety of truly important concerns and challenges.
Over time, I learned both the advantages and disadvantages, both the potential and the limitations, of worldly philosophies and approaches to thinking about, analyzing, and solving problems. I believe the concepts and skills I was blessed to learn and apply are worthwhile and helpful, and they have enabled me to “see” and “believe” many things. But today I caution and warn that mortal methods can only go so far and only do so much. These cognitive frameworks and analysis techniques ultimately cannot address the questions of the soul, the purpose and meaning of our mortal experience, and the things of eternity.
Ye Cannot Know of Things Ye Do Not See
Recall the teachings of Korihor the anti-Christ as he attempted to undermine belief in God and in the redemptive role of the Lord Jesus Christ:
"O ye that are bound down under a foolish and a vain hope, why do ye yoke yourselves with such foolish things? Why do ye look for a Christ? For no man can know of anything which is to come.
Behold, these things which ye call prophecies, which ye say are handed down by holy prophets, behold, they are foolish traditions of your fathers.
How do ye know of their surety? Behold, ye cannot know of things which ye do not see; therefore, ye cannot know that there shall be a Christ."[2]
Thus, Korihor stipulates that “seeing” is the only way a person can come to know anything.
Hope For Things Which Are Not Seen, Which Are True
In contrast, Alma declares that “faith is not to have a perfect knowledge of things; therefore if ye have faith ye hope for things which are not seen, which are true.”[3] Thus, for a person with Christ-focused faith, believing that which is true but not visible is, in fact, seeing.
I testify and witness that we can, do, and should know many things through means other than sight. “By the power of the Holy Ghost ye may know the truth of all things.”[4] Truly, believing is seeing!
As the Lord declared to Edward Partridge in 1830, “And I will lay my hand upon you by the hand of my servant Sidney Rigdon, and you shall receive my Spirit, the Holy Ghost, even the Comforter, which shall teach you the peaceable things of the kingdom.”[5]
The Savior instructed the members of His Church, “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.”[6]
Only with eyes of faith can we see what we need to see, learn what we need to learn, and ultimately become what we are destined to become as sons and daughters of the Eternal Father.
Balance and Binoculars
I assume all or almost all of you on some occasion have used binoculars to look at faraway objects. Binoculars are optical instruments designed for simultaneous use by both eyes and can help us to see distant things more clearly. Like telescopes, binoculars magnify objects and make them easier to see. But a person uses only one eye to look through a telescope. Both eyes are used to look through binoculars, thus making objects look more realistic.
Just as our vision of something far distant is sharpened by using both eyes with a pair of binoculars, so too our eternal purpose and priorities are clarified as we appropriately strive to balance and apply in our lives the dual principles of believing to see and seeing to believe.
The Lord emphasizes this vital balance in his admonition for us to “seek learning, even by study and also by faith.”[7]
And He specifically highlights this truth in a revelation directed to Oliver Cowdery during his work assisting the Prophet Joseph Smith on the translation of the Book of Mormon:
"Do not murmur, my son, for it is wisdom in me that I have dealt with you after this manner. 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. But, behold, I say unto you, that you must study it out in your mind; then you must ask me if it be right, and if it is right I will cause that your bosom shall burn within you; therefore, you shall feel that it is right.But if it be not right you shall have no such feelings, but you shall have a stupor of thought that shall cause you to forget the thing which is wrong."[8]You and I have a spiritual responsibility to exercise our moral agency and, to the best of our ability, think and work and study out in our own minds an issue or problem. We should do all in our power to reach an appropriate initial conclusion about the course we should pursue. But we expend this effort in preparation to sincerely and humbly seek God’s confirmation of our proposal. Rather than rely only upon our own intellect and capacity, we strive to obtain eyes of faith to receive and recognize direction that comes from God by the power of the Holy Ghost. Truly, believing is seeing what we otherwise could never see and learning what we otherwise could never learn.
Paul explained, “The natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.”[9]
Each of us should be wise and not be seduced to rely exclusively on the principle of “seeing is believing.” Doing so will restrict and constrain our understanding of the things that truly matter the most in our lives.
Promise and Testimony
I commend you on this commencement day for your accomplishments. I love you and will pray for your continued spiritual direction and protection.
As an Apostle of the Lord Jesus Christ, I invoke this blessings upon you—that according to your strong desire and faithful diligence, you will have eyes to see and ears to hear the things of God. I bless you to both “believe and see” and to “see and believe”—and to know which principle will best apply in the various circumstances of your life.
I joyfully declare my sure witness of the divinity and living reality of the Eternal Father and of His only Begotten and Beloved Son. Jesus Christ is our Savior and Redeemer, and I witness that He lives! I also witness that the restoration of the gospel of Jesus Christ is ongoing in these the latter days. Of these truths I testify in the sacred name of the Lord Jesus Christ, amen.
Notes
[1] See the same warning in David A. Bednar, “Repeat Over Again . . . the Same Things as Before,” BYU-Idaho Devotional, Jan. 26, 2016, https://www.byui.edu/devotionals/elder-david-a-bednar.
[2] Alma 30:13–15; emphasis added.
[3] Alma 32:21; emphasis added.
[4] Moroni 10:5.
[5] Doctrine and Covenants 36:2.
[6] Doctrine and Covenants 42:61
[7] Doctrine and Covenants 88:118.
[8] Doctrine and Covenants 9:6–9.
[9] 1 Corinthians 2:14.