I have always been intrigued by the story in the Book of Mormon involving Korihor. He demanded a sign from Alma the prophet of God to convince him that there was a God. Yet Alma's response was emphatic:
"Thou hast had signs enough; will ye tempt your God? Will ye say, Show unto me a sign, when you have the testimony of all these thy brethren, and also all the holy prophets? The scriptures are laid before thee, yea, and all things denote there is a God; yea, even the earth, and all things that are upon the face of it, yea, and its motion, yea, and also all the planets which move in their regular form do witness that there is a Supreme Creator."[1]
I testify that this is true! I believe that everywhere we look and everything we see, hear and experience--in fact, the very idea that we can see, hear, and experience, all testifies of the fact that there is a loving and personal God in the heavens whose wondrous plan allows us to come here to this amazing planet and partake of this incredible experience we call mortality. If everything denotes that there is a God, then everywhere you look can build your testimony.
Every time you glance to the west around sunset and pause to consider a masterful Creator in the heavens with a paintbrush and palette with colors that almost seem unreal, you realize there is a loving and kind Heavenly Father who shows us a small peak into His creative genius. If you have ever climbed up Table Rock in the nearby Teton range and been inspired by the beautiful scenery all of the way to the top only to have your jaw drop as you gaze upon the massive and amazing Grand Teton range right in front of you. You and I have seen views of a lush rainforest, an imposing desert, the powerful erosion of a canyon wall, the beauty of a cascading waterfall to the immensity of the stars in the heavens. We have experienced examples from the vast vistas of this incredible earth to the intricate details of a simple flower. They all speak of a God who is all-powerful, all knowing, and present in all things.
Also, everyone you meet can lead you closer to Christ and help you become more like Him. There is a command in the Doctrine and Covenants to "Teach ye diligently and my grace shall attend you, that you may be instructed more perfectly in theory, in principle, in doctrine, in the law of the gospel, in all things that pertain unto the kingdom of God, that are expedient for you to understand." Then the Lord decides to get more specific, just in case we weren't understanding what types of learning we should focus on: "Of things both in heaven and in the earth, and under the earth; things which have been, things which are, things which must shortly come to pass; things which are at home, things which are abroad; the wars and the perplexities of the nations, and the judgments which are on the land; and knowledge also of countries and of kingdoms." And then He tells us why we are to learn these things: "That ye may be prepared in all things when I shall send you again to magnify the calling whereunto I have called you, and the mission with which I have commissioned you."[2]
What a divine commission! It sounds like we are to learn it all--whether it is astronomy, geology, chemistry, physics, biology, history, religion, music, art, archeology, international relations, mathematics, social sciences, interior design, construction, home and family, and more. Maybe that is why this institution exists, to help in all of that. Actually, this is a perfect place to learn of all of these things. The classes are right here. The timing is just right. You have a great opportunity here to learn physics, chemistry and astronomy and other classes from great instructors of faith and abilities. The Foundations program also helps with learning these things.
I believe that it goes for us personally as well. We need to see the Lord and His gospel in all aspects of our lives and the lives of those around us. Recently, my family had the opportunity of living abroad in Israel, where Latter-day Saints were quite the minority. Yet everywhere we looked, there lived great people of other faiths who showed us by their walk and their talk that they lived the gospel according to their best understandings. I learned what it meant to be envious of someone's religious beliefs. I envied the Jews, the Christians, and the Muslims for their devotion and zeal to their God and their religion and to sacred places.
It is quite singular that the Jews are even recognized as a distinct people today. They have somehow kept their identity as a people for almost 4,000 years, despite the scatterings and migrations and persecutions they have faced. Yet I learned from them how important it was for them to keep the Sabbath day holy. Almost all Christians believe in the Ten Commandments given to Moses on Mount Sinai. Yet how many of them treat the Sabbath day as just another day of the week?
Several years ago a poll on sin was given in the mass media and they asked which of the Ten Commandments still had application in our lives today. It is nice to note that 97 percent of the people who responded said that "Thou shalt not kill" was still important today. You would have to hope that those in the 3 percent who said it was okay to kill are not your neighbors. But only a little over half of those polled said that keeping the Sabbath day holy was important today. Those two commandments, not killing and keeping the Sabbath day holy, were part of the same creed. They were both given by the same God at the same time to the same people.
My family noted how careful the Jews were in Israel to keep that commandment to the best of their abilities. They made sure their shopping was completed well before their Sabbath began. Many orthodox Jews would not even turn on lights in their homes or turn on or off their ovens on the Sabbath day to avoid what they considered to be breaking the Sabbath. When the Sabbath arrived, they do not drive cars. They would dress up in the Sabbath best and walk to their synagogues and rejoice and sing and welcome in the queen of the Sabbath. My family laughs now at an experience that happened while we were eating a Sabbath dinner at one of our orthodox Jewish Friend's home. The couple had a couple of young children. One was 5 years old and he left the table to use the restroom.
While there, we heard him say to his parents he saw a spider in the bathroom. The father told him not to kill the spider, because it was the Sabbath day. Almost immediately, he heard the young boy say, "Too late. I killed it!" These Jews were a great reminder of the importance of keeping that day holy. They took it as seriously today as if it had been given to them anew from God.
I was often reminded of a quote I had heard that helped me understand what has happened generationally to this holy day over the years. "Our great-grandfathers called it the Holy Sabbath. Our grandfathers called it the Sabbath. Our fathers called it Sunday. Today we call it the weekend." You can see the drift that has occurred in our day from keeping one of the Ten Commandments. How many Christian supported schools play football games on the Sabbath? How many people do their shopping on that day, etc. I learned from this wonderful people the importance of striving to keep the Sabbath day holy in my life. I know I can do better as I see their example.
Another commandment I was inspired to keep better was my devotion to God in prayer. The Muslim peoples are such a great example of those who keep this very important time of communion with our Father faithfully in our day. The call to prayer emits from minarets surrounding their mosques five times a day. The first is at 4:00 in the morning! I must admit the first several times I heard this wake me up in the wee hours of the morning were not very inspiring. This would be the Mormon equivalent of hearing over loudspeakers in your apartment complexes, "Ere You Left Your Room This Morning, Did You Think To Pray?"
That call to prayer is so beautiful to me now. The call "Allah Akbar! God is Great!" softens my heart and reminds me of the all important opportunity I have to talk with my Heavenly Father, and that the Muslims do five times every day. Shopkeepers in the Old City of Jerusalem would place a wooden stick across their shops to let people know that they were away for a time to go to their prayers in the mosque. Their shop doors were open and nothing more than that stick was between thousands of dollars of merchandise and the busy throng of customers passing by. I thought of their trust in mankind's integrity, but also of their dedication to this great pillar of their faith.
Once while travelling from Egypt back to Jerusalem, we were at a border crossing in the middle of the desert. There was no mosque and we were waiting for a bus to come and take us along our journey home. We noticed a young Muslim man who was waiting with us leave our group and found a cardboard box that he flattened out. He picked it up and went a ways off the road into the desert and looked up into the sky to get his bearings and set the flattened box on the ground and then proceeded to pray towards Mecca. I was at first amused but then quickly rebuked as I admired this man's devotion towards God. He was living his religion despite the inconveniences and what others might think. I was deeply envious of this dear Son of God and his devotion to his God. A great lesson was taught and learned that day.
In the Old City of Jerusalem is the Church of the Holy Sepulcher. To more than 70 percent of the entire Christian world, it is the holiest spot on earth. They believe it is built over the places where the Savior hung on the cross at Calvary and then where His body was embalmed and then laid in Joseph of Arimathea's tomb. Christian pilgrims come from around the world to pay homage to the place where their Savior suffered and died. There is a stone slab three feet by six feet long that is believed by them to be the place where Jesus' body was placed after being taken down from the cross and wrapped prior to being placed in the tomb.
We would see people from all over the world come and fall down upon the stone and kiss it and place candles and other artifacts upon it to make them more holy. They would then return with these items to their homes having in a sense sanctified them by having them touch a place where they believed Jesus touched. Others would climb steep stairs and wait in long lines to place their hands in the spot where they believed Jesus' cross was placed. They would again wait in lines to enter the edicule (a monument) to touch the slab that covered the place where Jesus' body laid before He was resurrected.
On Fridays, there would always be a procession of pilgrims who would retrace the steps of Jesus as He was led from Pilate's palace to the Church of the Holy Sepulcher. They would stop at all of the 14 Stations of the Cross and recount the events that happened there along the way. It deepened my faith in my own dear Savior as I witnessed their devotion. As you might have sensed in my descriptions of these dear people, there is so much good in this world. So many people with a deep love and conviction for their Savior and God. I now have a greater sense from the Jews to keep the Sabbath day holy, and from the Muslims to have a more constant and abiding connection with my Heavenly Father through prayer, and from the Christians of a greater sense of the sacred, and of holy spaces than I had before.
This sense of the sacred was addressed in great detail by Elder D. Todd Christofferson in a devotional he gave at BYU several years ago. He mentioned how our generation has somehow not transmitted to your generation the importance of helping you have this sense of sacred things. Quoting Elder Christofferson:
"The importance of having a sense of the sacred is simply this--if one does not appreciate holy things, he will lose them. Absent of a feeling of reverence, he will grow increasingly casual in attitude and lax in conduct. He will drift from the moorings that his covenants with God could provide. His feeling of accountability to God will diminish and then be forgotten. Thereafter, he will care only about his own comfort and satisfying his uncontrolled appetites. Finally, he will come to despise sacred things, even God, and then he will despise himself."
He gave a few examples that I believe will be instructive to us all. One dealt with how we reverence the 15 prophets, seers and revelators that we have on the earth today. He related a story that occurred in the life of Elder Robert D. Hales years before he was called as an apostle himself:
"Some years ago Father, then over eighty years of age, was expecting a visit from a member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles on a snowy winter day. Father, an artist, had painted a picture of the home of the Apostle. Rather than have the painting delivered to him, this sweet Apostle wanted to go personally to pick the painting up and thank my father for it.
"Knowing that Father would be concerned that everything was in readiness for the forthcoming visit, I dropped by his home. Because of the depth of the snow, snowplows had caused a snow bank in front of the walkway to the front door. Father had shoveled the walks and then labored to remove the snow bank. He returned to the house exhausted and in pain. When I arrived, he was experiencing heart pain from overexertion and stressful anxiety. My first concern was to warn him of his unwise physical efforts. Didn't he know what the result of his labor would be?
"'Robert,' he said through interrupted short breaths, 'do you realize an Apostle of the Lord Jesus Christ is coming to my home? The walks must be clean. He should not have to come through a snowdrift.' He raised his hand, saying, 'Oh, Robert, don't ever forget or take for granted the privilege it is to know and to serve with Apostles of the Lord.'"[3]
We need to have a sense of the sacred when we listen and hearken and obey counsel as given by these holy men. The Book of Mormon warns us of this very thing:
"For the things which some men esteem to be of great worth, both to the body and the soul, others set at naught and trample under their feet. Yea, even the very God of Israel do men trample under their feet; I say, trample under their feet but I would speak in other words--they set him at naught, and hearken not to the voice of his counsels."[4]
A second warning about having a sense of the sacred given by Elder Christofferson was for our bodies and our dress and grooming. He mentioned how he has noticed a casualness in the efforts of our members on their dress to sacrament meetings and other religious meetings:
"I speak now of immodest, casual, or slovenly dress and grooming that in particular times and places mocks the sacredness of what is taking place or of the place itself. Let me give you an example. A while back a young woman from another state came to live with some of her relatives in the Salt Lake City area for a few weeks. On her first Sunday she came to church dressed in a simple, nice blouse and knee-length skirt set off with a light, button-up sweater. She wore hose and dress shoes, and her hair was combed simply but with care. Her overall appearance created an impression of youthful grace.
"Unfortunately, she immediately felt out of place. It seemed like all the other young women her age or near her age were dressed in casual skirts, some rather distant from the knee; tight T-shirt-like tops that barely met the top of their skirts at the waist (some bare instead of barely); no socks or stockings; and clunky sneakers or flip-flops.
"One would have hoped that seeing the new girl, the other girls would have realized how inappropriate their manner of dress was for a chapel and for the Sabbath day and immediately changed for the better. Sad to say, however, they did not, and it was the visitor who, in order to fit in, adopted the fashion (if you can call it that) of her host ward.
"It is troubling to see this growing trend that is not limited to young women but extends to older women, to men, and to young men as well. Some say dress and hair don't matter--it's what's inside that counts. I believe that truly it is what's inside a person that counts, but that's what worries me. Casual dress at holy places and events is a message about what is inside a person.
"It may be pride or rebellion or something else, but at a minimum it says, 'I don't get it. I don't understand the difference between the sacred and the profane.' In that condition they are easily drawn away from the Lord. They do not appreciate the value of what they have. I worry about them. Unless they can gain some understanding and capture some feeling for sacred things, they are at risk of eventually losing all that matters most. You are Saints of the great latter-day dispensation--look the part."
Returning once again to the lessons I learned in Israel from our spiritual cousins, the Jews and the Muslims: they do have a sense of the sacred when it comes to dress and grooming. We noted that Muslim women were always modest in their apparel. They wore clothes that were plain and covered their heads and arms and legs. Muslim men had hairstyles that were neat and short and groomed very well. Jewish women likewise were modest. Unfortunately, sometimes our students had to wear extra scarves into their sanctuaries or mosques or synagogues to cover themselves up before they were allowed into their holy places.
How do we keep a sense for the sacred? How do we know when we are drifting away and losing the ability to recognize that we may be drifting away from sacred things? I believe that there are two ways to help us keep a sense of the sacred. One is to invite and be worthy of the Holy Spirit. The gentle urgings of the spirit will help us feel what is sacred around us. And second is to pray for the gift of discernment. This gift helps magnify many other gifts of the Spirit. It may be what you might call a gateway gift. It will help us discern between shades of degrees to know when we need to alter our behavior to have a better sense of the sacred. It will also soften our hearts and give us courage to change.
Back in 2001, Elder David A. Bednar was teaching a class here on campus. He told the class a story that occurred while he was a stake president in Arkansas. He was interviewing a 17-year-old young man who wasn't too sure that he wanted to serve a mission. After listening to the young man, President Bednar then asked him, "Why do you think you were born?"
That is a question that I would like to pose to you this day: "Why do you think you were born?" Have you ever stopped to think about that? By being able to answer that one simple question might help us in making better decisions in this life. Other related questions are: "Why was I born at this time in the history of the world?" or "Why was I born to parents in the gospel when so many of our Heavenly Father's children do not have this blessing?" or "Why do I have the opportunity of obtaining an education at a Church-sponsored school when so many don't have or can't afford this blessing?" These are valid and soul-searching questions. Sometimes we forget who we are. We allow the world to trick us into forgetting why we are here and what are true goals in life should be.
Consider the story of the man who was returning home from a long trip abroad and found himself in an airport waiting for his connecting flight home. There was a delay, so he went and purchased a newspaper and some milk and cookies and sat down at a table to wait for his next flight. As he was reading his newspaper, he noticed some rustling at his table. From behind his paper, he noticed a neatly dressed young woman helping herself to his cookies.
He did not want to make a scene, so he leaned across and took a cookie himself. He went back to reading his paper thinking this was now settled. A minute passed when he heard more rustling. He was flabbergasted to see that she was eating another one of his cookies. So he stared her down and then took another cookie. The young lady didn't seem offended. She then took another one herself. He then grabbed another cookie and ate it and she did the same.
They traded off eating cookies until it came down to the last cookie. It shocked him to see that she took the last cookie and then right in front of him, she broke the cookie in half, passed half of the cookie to him and then ate the other half, got up and left. He sat in shocked disbelief and was still fuming when he heard over the loudspeaker that his flight was about to board. He took the newspaper and folded it up and shoved it into his bag. It was then that he noticed his bag of cookies. The whole time he had been eating her cookies.
Imagine his embarrassment. Imagine her wondering what this guy's problem was. Do we sometimes make a rash decision or judgment on someone, because we have inadequate information? How do we avoid making mistakes like this? We need to know who we are and where we are going and whose cookies we are eating. Marianne Williamson said a quote that I think applies here:
"Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, 'Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous?' Actually, who are you not to be, you are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so others won't feel insecure around you. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It is not just in some of us, it is in everyone. And as we let our own light shine we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others."
This brings us back to the scriptural admonition of learning it all. It would be tough to accomplish while you are here at BYU-Idaho. So I will suggest an idea that I am sure you have already heard, but I would like to remind you of. That is to be a lifelong learner. While here in school I would recommend taking a class or two outside of your area of study. Be curious! Take that class in photography or humanities that interests you. There might never be a better time to do this.
But then as you finish your degrees, then make a plan to continue to grow and learn and develop that will continue for the rest of your eternal lives. The Joseph Smith Translation of Matthew 5:48 says, "Ye are therefore commanded to be perfect!" If you are to become like our Heavenly Parents then you just might have to learn chemistry, the building block of creating a world of your own. That is when geology and botany and biology and anatomy and physiology will also come in handy.
There is so much to learn and do. It does not need to be done or learned all at once. We do not have to run faster than we have strength, but we should have a plan of sorts. I would recommend having a list of good books that interest you that you can read when you have a little more time. Have a bucket list of things you wish to do or accomplish when your resources are a little deeper. Collect uplifting quotes that inspire you that you can think upon in those quiet moments of your lives. I began on my mission to write down quotes I heard from teachers, companions and later students that inspired me to be better. I filled up two books before I began putting them on a web page. I love this one from Sister Marjorie Pay Hinckley, the wife of President Gordon B. Hinckley:
"I don't want to drive up to the pearly gates in a shiny sports car, wearing beautifully, tailored clothes, my hair expertly coiffed, and with long, perfectly manicured fingernails. I want to drive up in a station wagon that has mud on the wheels from taking kids to scout camp. I want to be there with a smudge of peanut butter on my shirt from making sandwiches for a sick neighbor's children. I want to be there with a little dirt under my fingernails from helping to weed someone's garden. I want to be there with children's sticky kisses on my cheeks and the tears of a friend on my shoulder. I want the Lord to know I was really here and that I really lived."
Another from J.R.R. Tolkien from his book The Lord of the Rings:
"All that is gold does not glitter,
Not all those who wander are lost,
The old that is strong does not wither,
Deep roots are not reached by the frost."
The last one I would like to share is from Rudyard Kipling that helped me decide to be a better person. It is titled "If":
"If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you
But make allowance for their doubting too.
If you can wait and not be tired of waiting
Or be lied about--don't deal in lies.
Or be hated--don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look to good, nor talk too wise.
If you can dream--and not make dreams your master
If you can think--and not make thoughts your aim.
If you can meet with triumph and disaster
And treat those two imposters just the same.
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to--broken,
And stoop and build them up with worn out tools.
If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch and toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss.
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve their turn long after they are gone.
And to hold on when there is nothing within you
except the will which says to them, "Hold on!"
If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue
or walk with kings--nor lose the common touch.
If neither foes or loving friends can hurt you
If all men count with you, but none too much.
If you can fill the unforgiving minutes
with sixty seconds worth of distance run
Yours is the earth and everything that's in it,
And which is more, you'll be a man, my son."
Just a quick piece of advice. As I said, you don't need to learn it all, all at once. We all have noticed some people who start fast and then fade. This happens in races, but also in Church callings, and many other facets in life. There are others who start off very slowly and when they see the finish line or end, they speed up and finish strong. These are not inherently bad, but I believe it is mostly what we do in the middle. There is a lot more middle than on either end.
Think of the new year fast approaching. Many of us will make goals. Do we start them quickly and soon forget them? Do we forget about them until the end of the year and then try to do them all at once? It is what we do in the middle that matters most. Apply this to your schooling. How many of us start our schooling with high hopes, but only to forget those hopes and dreams until it may be too late in our schooling to fix or correct something? The same thing happens in every semester. I see students who start strong and quickly fade. I see others who right about now want to know how they can salvage their grade when they have missed assignments and deadlines or have not done well on tests. I am always so impressed with the students who are consistent throughout the semester, who come to every class and do all their assignments, and who ask appropriate questions along the way (hopefully before an assignment comes due). It is the middle that matters! It is the middle where you gain what can be called "muscle memory."
I testify to you that there is a God! He is real and personal and loving. He is also just. I challenge you to find God in everywhere you look and in everyone you meet. Unlike Korihor, I know you will see Him everywhere you look. Now is the time to prepare to meet our God. And when we meet Him, it is my hope and prayer that we will each hear these memorable words, "Well done, thou good and faithful servant: thou hast been faithful over a few things, I will make thee ruler over many things: enter thou into the joy of thy lord."[5] In the holy and sacred name of our Savior and Redeemer, whose birth we now and forever celebrate, Jesus Christ, amen.
Notes
[1] Alma 30:44
[2] Doctrine and Covenants 88:78-80
[3] "Gratitude for the Goodness of God," Ensign, May 1992, 64
[4] 1 Nephi 19:7
[5] Matthew 25:21