Elder Neal A. Maxwell was a member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles when he delivered this address at the BYU Women’s Conference on February 18, 1983.
I thank each of you for your attendance here, for the lovely invocation and the splendid music we had, and for that introduction. I’m pleased to be with you today, my sisters. Your Tolkien theme, “deep roots are not reached by the frost,” might well have had added to it, “nor are they scorched by the sun.” Jesus described the realities of that scorching sun when he talked in these terms, “and some fell upon the stony places where they had not much Earth and forthwith they sprung up because they had no deepness of Earth. And when the sun was up, they were scorched. And because they had no root, they withered away” (Matthew 13:5–6).
Alma, as you know, also wrote concerning the gospel seed. He said it will grow only if nourished by “faith, with great diligence and with patience” (Alma 32:41).
Thus nourished, the gospel seed will sprout and also develop a good root system, which will flourish, whether attacked by a chilling frost, or the heat of a scorching sun. By using a word as graphic as scorch to describe the heat, which believers will feel, our Lord who is not given to hyperbole, confirms that the heat will come—not alone in the rigors of daily life but also in the special summer of circumstance at that point in history when the leaves of the fig tree sprout, the anticipated summer is upon us. And only those who are, to cite Peter and Paul’s adjectives, “grounded,” “rooted,” “established,” and “settled” will survive spiritually. (See Ephesians 3:17, 2 Peter 1:12, 1 Peter 5:10, Colossians 1:23.)
Paul wrote that the temptations and challenges that disciples face are common to man, but disciples must respond uncommonly. Furthermore, life’s curriculum actually includes some extra challenges for disciples. Nevertheless, the Lord seeth fit to “chasten his people, yea, he trieth their patience and their faith” (Mosiah 23:21). Once again, note the need for faith and patience. Furthermore, “my people must be tried in all things, and he that will not bear chastisement is not worthy of the kingdom” (Doctrine and Covenants 136:31). Now, sisters, being tried in all things does not suggest merely superficial stress or occasional challenges. Even so, we should not be so attuned to the extraordinary that we miss the reality that built into the seemingly ordinary experiences of life are adequate opportunities for us to acquire the eternal and Christ-like attributes and to develop them seriously. They are love, mercy, meekness, patience, submissiveness, and so on. Likewise, there is opportunity in even the most seemingly ordinary life to develop and to sharpen the everlasting skills, how to communicate, how to motivate, delegate, how to manage our time and our talents and our thoughts. These attributes and skills are all portable; they are never obsolete. To the degree that we develop them in mortality, we will have so much the advantage in the world to come. Moreover, these qualities are most likely to be developed cumulatively rather than in spurts. They are developed by doing what Jesus said, “take up the cross daily” (Luke 9:23). It will be these skills and attributes that will rise with us in the resurrection and precious little else, therefore keeping our sense of proportion whatever we do, keeping our precious perspective wherever we are, and keeping the commandments however we are tested. These constitute being grounded, rooted, established, and settled in our discipleship. Being thus rooted puts all other things in their proper proportion.
So it is no small blessing, this larger view of things. Achieving this condition is not easy, for you and I are crowded, even consumed, by the cares of the world. We are diverted by the praise of the world, buffeted by the trials of the world, diminished by the appetites and temptations of the world, and bruised by the hardness of the world. With deepened discipleship, however, things that we had never supposed come into view, seeming routine turns out to be resplendent with possibilities. Ordinary people seem quite the opposite. The humdrum of life, when savored, contains symphonic sounds. A circumstance or conversation that looks quite pedestrian nevertheless proves pivotal. But there are no bands playing, no headlines, no footage on the six o’clock news. A very significant part, therefore, of getting settled consists of coming to terms, each of us, with the common temptations and trials and the seeming routine of life, within which what seems so commonplace seldom is.
Occasionally, some individuals let the seeming ordinariness of life dampen their spirits, though actually coping and growing. Still others lack the quiet inner soul satisfaction that can steady them. Such experience, instead, a lingering sense that there is something more important they should be doing, that their present chores are somehow not quite what was expected, as if quietly achieved in righteous individual living or in parenthood, the development of life was not sufficiently spectacular. Feeling unrequited and underwhelmed does not occur, however, because of structural deficiencies in our divinely designed second estate. In fact, opportunities lie all about us unused.
For perspective, therefore, you and I will do well to recall why we’re here. In the terse communique from the Gods about our being placed on this planet, the basic objective of life was stated: “and we will prove them herewith to see if they will do all things whatsoever the Lord their God shall command them,” a pithy but sweeping declaration of divine intent (Abraham 3:25). And this second estate through which you and I are passing has been carefully, carefully structured to carry out that intent. To misunderstand the straightforward and tutorial purposes of this life as a proving process is to make a fundamental error that ensures that thousands of additional errors will follow. If our focus on the fundamental purpose of life is blurred, we will not see things as Jacob said, “as they really are” (Jacob 4:13). Since we are here to be thus proved, how can that occur, except we are actually tested and not in the abstract? If we are here to learn to choose wisely, how can that occur, except there be enticing alternatives? If our soul is to be stretched, how can that happen without growing pains? How can genuine personal development occur unless we have authentic challenges on which to practice? Even so, some may say, should I not be doing something else? That is not the real question. The real question was put by Alma: “Why should I desire more than to perform the work to which I have been called” (Alma 29:6)? That is the question. Therefore, when you and I are grounded and rooted, we will understand how utilizing the seemingly ordinary experiences of our life and how keeping the commandments are true tests of our performance in this second estate.
It is left to us therefore, sisters, in our varied circumstances, which contain common temptations and challenges, to affect the wise inter-play of our time and our talent in order to bring about the development of the key eternal attributes and the everlasting skills. A botched performance here means less chance to serve there. And how needed the precious perspective of the gospel is, as you and I view our varied circumstances. Some in the church are divorced. Some are unmarried but yearn to be [married] and are worthy to be. Some are widows, and some are widowers. Others are blessed to be in traditional intact families. Some are healthy, others are ill, and some are seriously and even terminally ill. Some of our Church members are struggling economically; a few are quite comfortable economically. Some are lonely, and others have almost more friends than they can manage. Our immediate circumstances differ thusly. But these circumstances will pass away soon enough, though surely, at times, to some, it may seem otherwise.
Notice, in contrast, how our basic circumstances and eventual opportunities are strikingly similar. Each of us is a child of God. Each of us agreed to pass through this mortal experience with its joys, its common temptations, its crises, and even its seeming ordinariness. Each of us can eventually have the privilege of receiving all the gospel ordinances. Each of us is accountable for our thoughts and actions. Each of us is loved perfectly and personally by a Heavenly Father who knows us and our needs perfectly. Each of us has the same commandments to keep and must walk the same straight and narrow path in order to have happiness here and now and there and then. Each of us has the same eternal attributes and everlasting skills to develop. So our fundamental circumstances are much the same. This means one hundred years from now, today’s seeming deprivations and tribulations will not matter much unless we let them matter too much now. One hundred years from now, today’s serious physical ailment will be but a dim memory. One day, those who now are anguished because they are unmarried will, if they are faithful, know the joys of being in the midst of a vast convocation of their posterity. The seeming deprivation that occurs in the life of a deserving single woman who feels she has no prospects of immediate marriage and motherhood properly endured foretells a delayed blessing. Some deprivation, therefore, is an excavation; it is the readying of a reservoir into which a generous God will later pour all that he hath. Indeed, it will be the Malachi measure, “there shall not be enough room to receive it” (Malachi 3:10). In eternity, the insensitivities and injustices of today’s grumpy boss will not matter then, when we live in the presence of a perfect God, perfect in His justice and His mercy. One thousand years from now, if one has been misrepresented or misunderstood, the resentment will be gone.
May I press this perspective further by this illustration? Much as you and I deservedly admire our valiant and devoted pioneer forbearers for having surmounted their special tests, the time will come when they will express their commendation and even their admiration for the Saints of today, including single sisters and single parents who live righteously, and so lead others in an increasingly wicked world. It will not surprise me, sisters, one day to see our handcart heroes and heroines congratulate, in turn, the heroes and the heroines of today.
So much depends, therefore, upon our maintaining perspective in the midst of the ordinariness and the pressures of persecution, temptation, tribulation, and deprivation. As you and I come to love the Lord more and more, we can understand, therefore, rather than resent his purposes. He who knows perfectly has declared there is no other way. Therefore, if necessary, it means that loyal sisters who follow Christ will be agreeable, as are loyal men, to forego their place in the secular synagogues of the world. Doing this has always been necessary; it has never been easy. “Nevertheless, among the chief rulers also many believed on Christ, but because of the Pharisees, they did not confess Him, unless they should be put out of the synagogue, for they loved the praise of men, more than the praise of God” (John 12: 42–43). Faithful sisters may need to forego the praise of women and of some in the feminine establishment in order to pursue true and deep discipleship. Hence, the importance of one’s settling in and the importance of one’s feasting on the word of God, the holy scriptures, to keep our precious perspective amid praise or persecution. The Savior urged even his closest disciples as follows: “Settle this in your hearts, that you shall do the things which I shall teach and command you” (JST Luke 14:27–28). Then Jesus spoke of the high costs of discipleship, “signifying there should not any man follow him unless he was able to continue” (JST Luke 14:31). Clearly, Jesus underscored the importance of having his followers become grounded in the gospel, rooted in resolve, established in their expectations about life, and settled in their devotion to the Savior.
So situated, sisters, when the perplexities come to each of us, a disciple thus rooted can say with Nephi, “I do not know the meaning of all things. But I know that God loveth his children” (1 Nephi 11:17). Sometimes, sisters, this must be enough.
My particular suggestion for this conference concerns how to achieve that spiritually settled condition, at least one important thing that must be done: we are to feast on the holy scriptures; not nibble, feast. And in today’s world, when other things fail us, we should do as a determined Alma did as he strove to reclaim a whole people. And he determined after other things had not gone so well to try the virtue of the word of God. “And now as the preaching of the word had a great tendency to lead the people to do that which was just, yea, it had more powerful effect upon the minds of the people than the sword or anything else which had happened unto them. Therefore, Alma thought it was expedient that they should try the virtue of the word of God” (Alma 31:5).
Inasmuch as we live in a time when peace has been taken from the earth, this counsel about the comparative power of the holy word is relevant, especially because you and I live in what might be called the years of the nuclear sword.
However diverse our present circumstances, feasting on the scriptures will help us, for among other blessings, when we feel proximate loneliness, this will give way to an ultimate sense of belonging. Surely, the disappointments of the day can be put in perspective when we let the scriptures teach us about the promises of eternity. Since, for instance, we are watched over by a just and tutoring God who knows and loves each of us perfectly, we can experience the profound influence of that fatherhood, even when sisterhood and brotherhood fall short of what is needed.
No wonder one prophet said that he and his people “owed all their happiness to the word of God” (Alma 44:5). It will be the same with us. In today’s world in which, astonishingly, many seem determined to repeat the mistakes and the tragedies of the past, you and I can verify Alma’s observation about how the scriptures “enlarge the memory of his people” (Alma 37:8). The mistakes of the past need not be repeated. Indeed, sisters, the scriptures constitute mankind’s moral memory. Without that memory, a whole nation can perish. To what great pains valiant men and women over the centuries have gone in order to preserve these marvelous scriptures for us.
Ponder these quick examples from the lives of several translators of the scriptures: Coverdale, Wycliffe, and Tyndale. All of Coverdale’s books were condemned and burnt. He lost his bishopric and said, “I have cast my penny’s worth already. I am steadfastly determined never to return into Egypt, never to kiss the golden calf, never to recant the Word of Life. Sure I am, though the flail of adversity beat never so hard, and the wind of affliction never so sore, it shall but break my straw and blow away my chaff.”
Wycliffe took the scriptures to the people, not to the churches, but to the common people in the streets, in the homes, and in their fields. They carried single sheets of the New Testament about with them in Middle English, the language of the day. In Tyndale’s case, strict instructions had been given to prevent his New Testament from entering England. But the Testaments entered anyway, 6,000 copies of them hidden under bales of goods. Church authorities built a bonfire where they publicly burned any books they found. Then, the cost of a New Testament was a full week’s pay. But the books were bought, secreted, and read.
How very difficult, sisters, it must have been to engrave so laboriously, word by word upon the plates from whence we get the Book of Mormon. There were no dictaphones then, no secretaries, no copy machines. Sometimes it was engrave and flee. Notice these words of a lonely editor, Moroni, about his final days:
and my father also was killed by them. And I even remain alone to write the sad tale of the destruction of my people. But behold, they are gone. Behold, my father hath made this record and he hath written the intent thereof. And behold, I would write also, if I had room upon the plates, but I have not, and ore have I none, for I am alone. My father hath been slain in battle and all my kinsfolk. I have not friends, nor whither to go, and how long the Lord will suffer that I may live, I know not. (Mormon 8:3–5)
Alas, today, for so many mortals, even some professed Christians, their scriptures are something they possess but which does not possess them. The scriptures rest upon their bookshelves instead of upon their hearts and their minds. Sisters, it must not be so with us. As Latter-day Saints, let us not neglect what God has given to us in the new publications of the scriptures, the best array of resource materials the people of God have had in any dispensation. Granted, the scriptures give us only minimal disclosure as to certain historical personalities but maximum disclosure as to the straight and narrow path. This is as it should be. Someday, we shall learn much more about Eve’s splendid personality. Likewise, the personality of James. Someday, we can learn what the feelings and thoughts of those inspired and courageous women were who loyally and anguishingly witnessed the crucifixion. “And many women were there beholding afar off, which followed Jesus from Galilee, ministering unto him” (Matthew 27:55).
Someday, too, those of us who are too busy as adults will appreciate even more than we now do what righteous children could tell us if we would but listen. “And it came to pass that Jesus did teach and minister unto the children of the multitude, and he did loose their tongues, and they did speak unto their fathers great and marvelous things, even greater than Jesus had revealed unto the people” (3 Nephi 26:14). Let us as church members turn to the scriptures rather than to commentaries about them. Henry Ward Beecher said, “Coming to the Bible through commentaries is much like looking at a landscape through Garrett windows over which generations of unmolested spiders have spun their webs.”[1]
The scriptures themselves tell us why they should be read. First, we’re told that if we feast, not nibble, on the holy scriptures, they will help us to stay on the straight and narrow path. Next, the scriptures especially testify of Jesus Christ, just as He said they would. “Search, [not scan,] search the scriptures; for in them you think ye have eternal life: and they are they which testify of me” (John 5:39).
The decline in the reading of the scriptures in the so-called Christian world has been inexorably accompanied by a decline in the faith of people in the Lord Jesus Christ. It should not surprise us that it is so. The scriptures not only attest that God lives and that Jesus lives, but mercifully, they testify to the reality of the resurrection. The scriptures witness that on two different continents, the resurrection began after Jesus’s resurrection, and “many, [not a few], many . . . saints which slept arose . . . and appeared unto many” (Matthew 27:52–53). The scriptures can thus deliver mankind from the enveloping sense of despair that many feel because they have wrongly concluded that life is meaningless, that death is an irrevocable exclamation point instead of merely a comma.
Next, the Book of Mormon has also played a special role among all the books of scripture, but it will become, in my opinion, even more special as it establishes the truth of the apostolic witness of Jesus in the New Testament. “And the angel spake unto me saying, these last records [the Book of Mormon] these last records. . . shall establish the truth of the first [the New Testament] which are of the twelve apostles of the Lamb, and shall make known plain and precious things which have been taken away from them” (1 Nephi 13:40). Thus, the Book of Mormon is not an echo, but a fresh and clear witness for Christ, the atonement, and the resurrection.
Given such answers as to why we should search the scriptures, may I presume to suggest to you some how-to ways of being better nourished than we sometimes are by studying the scriptures? When we study the scriptures, we should take pains, as did Nephi, to “liken them unto ourselves” and our situation that they might be for our “profit and learning” (see 2 Nephi 11:2, 1 Nephi 19:23). Nowhere, by the way, sisters, is the law of serendipity, finding even more than that which was originally sought, operate more regularly than when one searches the scriptures for insight and inspiration for one’s own special circumstance. However, we are to ponder, not skim the scriptures. The resurrected Jesus on one occasion said that we are to search the scriptures, and then described prayer by indicating that if we pray in faith for that “which is right,” it will be granted (see 3 Nephi 23:1; 18:20).
Those three little words explain, sisters, why so many of our prayers are not answered as we would like to have them answered. We unintentionally pray amiss. And is it not true that if your bishop asked you next Sunday to give a speech on prayers that were not answered that we could all give some splendid speeches? And aren’t we grateful for that reservation that a loving Father makes that He will grant prayers asked in faith if they are right for us? We will miss three little words like that if we are skimming instead of pondering the scriptures.
We are to place the companion scriptures side by side as if they were missionaries to the soul, companions. Paul speaks about the thorn in the flesh and how the Lord promised him that His grace would be sufficient that Paul could cope with the affliction; this is a marvelous standalone scripture in 2 Corinthians 12:7–9; it becomes resplendent when it is put side by side with Ether 12:26 and 27, in which two great prophets remind us that afflictions come to humble us and that some of the weaknesses you and I have can, in fact, even become strengths. The new scriptures help us [cross]-reference all of these companion scriptures as never before.[2]
There are so many illustrations of how that is done. If, for instance, we want to teach about magnanimity and generosity of soul, why not speak about a generous Joseph in the 45th chapter of Genesis, dealing with his guilty and anxious brothers—verse five—when he consoles them by saying, “Now therefore, be not grieved, nor angry with yourselves, that you sold me hither, For God did send me before you to preserve life” (Genesis 45:5). How to deal with people who have wronged us? How to be generous in spite of being wronged? And the multiplicity of scriptures give us case after case in which that can be done. We will all be wronged, and we will wrong others. And the scriptures can give us illustrative examples of how to be generous and magnanimous and forgiving. Inlaid in the scriptures are innumerable insights that slip by us when we are reading superficially. When you and I consider how to deal with the temptations that Jesus said would come to us all, note this six-word formula which Jesus followed amid his very, very severe temptations: Doctrine and Covenants 20:22, “and he gave them no heed.” If we will do the same, sisters, dispatching temptation, we shall prevail, too. Rather than reprocessing the same temptations again and again, let us do as Jesus did and give them no heed.
What of the resentment and grumpiness that can accumulate when we encounter challenges in life? In commendation of Job we read, “For he did not charge God foolishly,” and neither should we (Job 1:22). To illustrate the relevance of scriptures for daily living, ponder these separate but correlated responses by two prophets, Alma and Paul, concerning contentment. “But behold, I am a man and do sin in my wish, for I ought to be content with the things which the Lord hath allotted unto me,” and Paul, “not that I speak in respect of want, for I have learned in whatsoever state I am therewith to be content” (Alma 29:3, Philippians 4:11).
How the Holy Spirit of our Heavenly Father correlates His prophets! Granted, there are times when a particular prophet is selected to give new revelation. Generally speaking, however, the prophets process and transmit the same truths from our Heavenly Father. It should not surprise us that it is so. One illustration of amplification and elaboration can be seen from these brief but insightful verses from Paul. Paul may well have written more than these verses about how Jesus’s empathy was developed by experience. But these verses are all that survived. “For in that He Himself hath suffered being tempted, He is able to succor them that are tempted, For we have not an high priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities, but was in all points tempted like as we are yet without sin” (Hebrews 2:18; 4:15). Granted, therefore, from the New Testament that Jesus was perfected in his empathy regarding temptation by his actual experience in the flesh. He knew far more temptations than we shall ever know. And He knew temptation according to the flesh. But I ask you, sisters, what of the consequences of surrendering to temptation? He never did. How could He understand therefore what it is like when you and I do? As far as the scriptures indicate, Jesus was healthy. How does He know what it is like when someone is dying of leukemia? If it were not for that marvelous Book of Mormon, we would be left wondering, how could Jesus know these feelings?
Through Alma comes the correlative grand and overarching and answering truth about how the marvelous atonement Jesus brought to pass not only gives to us immortality, but the final perfection of Jesus’s capacity to succor us, to understand us, and to have mercy for us. Alma 7:11 and 12: “And Jesus shall go forth, suffering pains and afflictions and temptations of every kind, and this that the word might be fulfilled which says, He will take upon him the pains and the sicknesses of his people, and he will take upon him death, that he may loose the bands of death, and he will take upon him their infirmities, that his bowels may be filled with mercy according to the flesh, and that he may know how to succor his people according to their infirmities.”
When Jesus took upon Him our sins, not only were they expiated, but then He knew what it was like to suffer for sin, which He could not have known because He was sinless. And when, as Alma says, He took upon Him in ways that we do not fully understand our sicknesses and our infirmities, then He understood perfectly well. We worship a Lord who, in every particular, knows from experience profoundly, perfectly, and personally, every problem through which we pass, so we can regard Him as the Good and the True Shepherd. And once again, from the deep spiritual resonance that echoes from the scriptures, these immensely important truths come in upon us like surf, refreshing us, reassuring us, cleansing us.
Beloved sisters, you will never come away from the pages of the scriptures, when they are searched, malnourished or disappointed. But no one can partake for us. We must try the virtue of the word of God ourselves, and it must be a regular feasting, not an occasional nibbling.
As I close, may I suggest that we emulate the feelings and reverence for the scriptures held by two different men, Tyndale and Paul? Tyndale was imprisoned and martyred for translating the Holy Scripture. Paul was imprisoned and martyred for providing and testifying of the Holy Scripture. The parallels are powerful and moving. Heroic Tyndale, from a cold dark dungeon where he survived for sixteen months and from which he would go forth to be strangled and then burned at the stake, sent a letter to a friend. In it, Tyndale asked his friend, he begged him for “a warmer cap. It is cold in here. A warmer coat and also a piece of cloth to patch my leggings. But above all, please bring me my Hebrew Bible.”[3] Heroic Paul, aging apostle, waiting in Rome to be brought before Nero a second time and then to be martyred, deserted by many of his friends, wrote to one true friend, Timothy. And much as did Tyndale, he said, “Please bring me my cloak, and my books, but especially the parchments, the Holy Scriptures” (see 2 Timothy 4:13).
Sisters, let us search and reverence the new publications of the scriptures. Let us, as never before, try the virtue of the word of God, whether it is printed or propelled by the Spirit of our Heavenly Father into our hearts and minds, for either way, it will incorporate its matchless power into our lives. I witness to you not only, therefore, that Jesus lived, but that He lives. Even more, I certify to you of the reality of that glorious and impending rendezvous which awaits the righteous at that place where, we learn from the scriptures, Jesus is Himself the gatekeeper, “for he employeth no servant there” (2 Nephi 9:41). Why? Because the good and the perfect Shepherd waits. As the holy scriptures also tell us so movingly, He waits to receive us with open arms (see Mormon 6:17).
He who knows you and loves you perfectly and individually so waits for you, sisters. Do not miss that moment. Do nothing to mar that moment of surpassing significance. It is a moment when, having overcome the world, you will be drenched in unspeakable joy. Gone will be the disappointments of a day, flown the anguish of a stern and severe season in life, dissolved the sense of deprivation; entered will be a kingdom, His realm, a place of everlasting joy. I testify to you as one of His special witnesses that it will be so—that the imagery that surrounds those powerful truths just read to you from the scriptures is a reality. It will be so. God bless you at all points along the path between now and that moment of surpassing significance. I testify that He does wait for the righteous with open arms and do so in the holy name of Jesus Christ, amen.
[1] Henry Ward Beecher, Life Thoughts (1858), 8. (Eds.)
[2] The Church had published new editions of the scriptures in 1979 (the Bible) and 1981 (the Book of Mormon, Doctrine and Covenants, and Pearl of Great Price) with extensive study helps and cross-references in the footnotes. (Eds.)
[3] W. Tyndale, The Forbidden Book (Shippensburg, PA: Lollard House, 1992), 73, 74. (Eds.)