Work before revelation
"Years ago I was asked to chair a committee of faculty from (BYU) and others with this question to study: What should be the future of higher education in the Church?
"And after months of what seemed to me futile effort, I felt some desperation, much as you do when heaven seems to withhold its help in a task you know matters and is beyond you.
"I somehow managed to arrange another interview. This one was with President Harold B. Lee. He received me in a kindly way. In my anxiety, I soon blurted out my question: 'President Lee, how do I get revelation?'
"He smiled. I am glad he didn't laugh, since it was an odd question to ask. But he answered my question with a story. It was essentially this. He said that during World War II he had been part of a group studying the question 'What should the Church be doing for its members in the military service?' He said they conducted interviews at bases up and down the country. They had data gathered. They had the data analyzed. They went back for more interviews. But still, no plan emerged.
"Then he gave me the lesson, which I now give to you, in about these words: 'Hal, when we had done all we knew how to do, when we had our backs to the wall, then God gave us the revelation. Hal, if you want to get revelation, do your homework.'
Brigham Young University Speeches, Sept. 30, 1990
A lifetime lesson
"A professor of mine, Ray Bauer, years ago corrected me when I put the label of "irrational" on someone's behavior. He said: 'Hal, you'll understand people better if you assume that people's behavior is rational, at least from their point of view. Try to see what they see.'
"… God asks only that we approach him humbly, as a child. He does not require that we master some dif?cult doctrine. A child can enter the kingdom of heaven."
Brigham Young University Speeches, Nov. 12, 1991
A testimony reaffirmed
"A few years ago I went with my two young daughters to the Museum of Church History and Art. They wanted to go through the exhibit on church history. They took with them the little pink sheets printed with questions that the lovely woman at the front desk gave them. While they writing down he answers to a question about a stone from the Nauvoo Temple, I waited for them at the next exhibit. My eyes went to two faces in a glass case, the death masks of Joseph and Hyrum.
"It took the girls a long time to write. And it took me a long time to look away from those two faces. And when I did, I walked back again. All the artifacts, and all the pictorial accounts of adventures, and even the tragedy portrayed before me melted away, and I could think only of a boy and then a man to whom the heavens were opened, who spoke with God the Father and his Son, who was taught by the angel Moroni, ordained by John the Baptist and by Peter, James, and John, empowered and taught by Moses, Elijah, and heavenly beings beyond his recounting and my comprehension. And most wonderful of all, as I stood there, I could hear the whispering of the Spirit say to me, 'It is true.'
"… So I don't just invite you to read the scriptures, to pray, to listen for the word of God. I plead with you. Put yourself where you can hear the words of testimony. Listen with the simplicity of a child. Expect that spirit of testimony and revelation to impel you to action, to keep the commandments. And never think you have been taught enough, that you have listened long enough, that now is your time and turn to rest."
Logan Institute of Religion, January 1992
Focusing on others
"Another way to obtain a soft heart is to make sure you don't focus too much on yourself or your personal problems and struggles. Instead of thinking of yourself primarily as someone who is seeking purification, think of yourself as someone who is trying to find out who around you needs your help. Pray that way and then reach out. When you act under such inspiration it will have a sanctifying effect on you.
"… For instance, you can pray and ask Heavenly Father if there's anything he would have you do. You might ask, "What would the Savior do if he were here? Is there anybody he might wish he could visit?" If you ask questions like that, the Holy Ghost will come and you'll feel nudges about things you can do for other people. When you go and do those things, you're on the Lord's errand, and when you're on the Lord's errand, you qualify for the gift of the Holy Ghost. And when the Holy Ghost is with you, he has a purifying effect that changes your nature."
Ricks College Devotional, September 1993
Change in our hearts
"As long as people want something for themselves enough to hurt you to get it, they will keep searching until they find a way. And you can never build a fence long enough, or high enough, or strong enough but that they will find a way around, or under, or through it.
"That is why neither education, nor disarmament, nor armament, nor negotiation, nor all of them in combination are likely to create a world or a neighborhood of lasting peace. To do that, a change has to come into human hearts. The change must be in what people want. Almost everyone in the world has heard of what that change is, because it is common to religions and philosophies across the world and across the centuries. It is said differently in the scriptures and writings of others, but the words you will recognize best are these: 'Therefore, all things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them, for this is the law and the prophets' (3 Nephi 14:12).
"You can see how that would work, if that change had come to your heart and to mine. If you and I both felt that way, whether we did or didn't have a gun wouldn't matter, unless you tried to give me yours because you felt I needed it to hunt for food more than you did.
"We would certainly still need to negotiate when we disagreed, but our negotiations would take a very different turn. I saw two such men — changed men — negotiate for a place in a cafeteria waiting line a few years ago. One, the younger man, tried to get the older man to go ahead of him, because he thought the older man's time was more valuable than his. But the older man refused. They were negotiating their disagreement as I watched, both determined that the other would go first. I remember that the older man won his point. His name was Spencer W. Kimball. The younger man must have thought that the time of the president of the Church was more valuable than his. But I suppose President Kimball thought that the younger man's stomach needed something in it sooner than his did. There was disagreement and negotiation. But think of what a disagreement that was, and think of the smiles on their faces as they found, together, a path of peace.
"… I have a memory of watching my little boys kick each other as they lay before me on the floor during our family night as I taught a lesson on peace in the family. In fact, that topic would bring it on. They heard me, they understood me, and yet they had been kicking for a long time before I started preaching. Now, years later, they reach across the world to help each other. But the change takes time. So be patient and persistent."
Brigham Young University Speeches, Feb. 6, 1994
Covenants with God
"Our Heavenly Father not only provided a savior and a gospel of Jesus Christ that teaches us the purpose of life and gives us commandments, but he provided covenants we could make with him. And with those covenants he provided ordinances where he could signify what he promised or covenanted to do and we could signify what we promised or covenanted to do. All of those covenants, taken together, are a "new and everlasting covenant."
"My concern is that by looking only at the promises we make, the magnitude of them could overwhelm and perhaps even discourage. Sadly, many of us have seen that happen.
"Every covenant with God is an opportunity to draw closer to him. To anyone who reflects for a moment on what they have already felt of the love of God, to have that bond made stronger and that relationship closer is an irresistible offer.
"All of us need to increase our desire to make covenants with God. A place to begin is to recognize some things that have already happened to each of us. That stirring we have felt to be better, the thought that there must be some higher life and better place, is a gift of faith in covenants with God."
BYU devotional, September 1996
Caring for others
"Such work is an opportunity, not a burden. Every member has made the covenant in the waters of baptism to be a witness for God. Every member has made a covenant to do works of kindness as the Savior would do. So any call to bear witness and to care for others is not a request for extra service; it is a blessing designed by a loving Heavenly Father and His Son Jesus Christ.
"There is a caution I would give and a promise I would offer about such choices of how to use family time. For a person not yet a member of the Church, to fail to provide such moments of love and faith is simply a lost opportunity. But for those under covenant, it is much more. There are few places where the covenant to love and to bear witness is more easily kept than in the home. And there are few places where it can matter more for those for whom we are accountable. For members of the Church, my caution is that to neglect those opportunities is a choice not to keep sacred covenants.
"Again I have a caution and a promise. The caution is that sorrow will come from failure either to love or to bear witness. If we fail to feel and show honest concern for those we approach with the gospel, they will reasonably distrust our message. But if out of fear of rejection we fail to tell them what the gospel has meant in our lives and could mean in theirs, we will someday share their sorrow. Either in this life or in the life to come, they will know that we failed to share with them the priceless gift of the gospel. They will know that accepting the gospel was the only way for them to inherit eternal life. And they will know that we received the gospel with a promise that we would share it."
General conference, October 1996
Counsel of prophets
"Every time in my life when I have chosen to delay following inspired counsel or decided that I was an exception, I came to know that I had put myself in harm's way. Every time that I have listened to the counsel of prophets, felt it confirmed in prayer, and then followed it, I have found that I moved toward safety. Along the path, I have found that the way had been prepared for me and the rough places made smooth. God led me to safety along a path which was prepared with loving care, sometimes prepared long before."
General conference, April 1997
Antidote for pride
"I will tell you that not only can you pursue educational excellence and humility at the same time to avoid spiritual danger but that the way to humility is also the doorway to educational excellence. The best antidote I know for pride also can produce in us the characteristics that lead to excellence in learning.
"Let's start with the problem of pride. There is more than one antidote for it. Some of them don't take any action on our part. Life delivers them. Failure, illness, disaster, and losses of all kinds have a way of chipping away at pride. But they come in uneven doses. Too much can come at one time and crush us with discouragement or embitter us. Or the antidote can come too late, after pride has made us vulnerable to temptation.
"There is a better way. There is something we can choose to do in our daily life that will provide a constant protection against pride. It is simply to remember who God is and what it means to be his child. That is what we covenant to do each time we take the sacrament, promising always to remember the Savior. Because of what has been revealed to us about the plan of salvation, remembering him can produce the humility that will be our protection. And then, as we will see later, that same choice to remember him will in time produce in us greater power to learn both what we need to know for living in this world and in the life to come.
BYU devotional, October 1997
Effects of repentance
"The truth is that we all need repentance. If we are capable of reason and past the age of eight, we all need the cleansing that comes through applying the full effects of the Atonement of Jesus Christ. When that is clear, we cannot be tricked into delay by the subtle question: 'Have I crossed the line of serious sin, or can I put off even thinking about repentance?' The question that really matters is this: 'How can I learn to sense even the beginning of sin and so repent early?'
"A second truth … is to know that we are not the helpless victims of our circumstances. The world tries to tell us that the opposite is true: Imperfections in our parents or our faulty genetic inheritance are presented to us as absolving us of personal responsibility. But difficult as circumstances may be, they do not relieve us of accountability for our actions or our inactions. Nephi was right. God gives no commandments to the children of men save He prepares a way for them to obey. However difficult our circumstances, we can repent."
General conference, October 1999